1 For a young reader, one of the most satisfying of these delights is a pervasive sense of controlled danger-a tantalizing tension between the anarchical naughtiness of a supremely vulnerable heroine on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the order and sense of aesthetic distance implicit in such elements as rhymed couplets and the recurring image of "twelve little girls in two straight lines." Madeline's central crisis is as compelling as that of many fairy tales the climactic rush to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy embodies two of childhood's most painful and frightening possibilities-separation from loved ones and a brush with death. Certainly the publisher's vigorous promotion of Madeline has contributed to the book's success, yet the pleasures of the work itself are the real justification for such marketing. Two years ago, Viking Penguin celebrated the book's fiftieth anniversary by issuing yet another edition, grouping a small format of Madeline with two of the sequels in a cardboard Madeline's House. Ludwig Bemelmans' Madeline (1939), a Caldecott Honor Book in the third year the award was given, has remained on the shelves for over half a century, continuing to garner new readers every year.
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