Betty Bard MacDonald

From her upside-down house, the eccentric Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle issues to parents her marvelous cures for such common children's diseases as Won't-Put-Away-Toys-itis, Answerbackism, and Fighter-Quarrelitis.

As the children plan a birthday party for Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, the loveable problem solver, with her trunk full of magic and her animal friends in tow, offers cures for such common conditions as watching too much television and the fear of trying new things.

Seven families are helped out by Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's magic cures when they are faced with thought-you-saiders, tattletales, bad table manners, interrupters, heedless breakers, never-want-to-go-to-schoolers, and wadde-I- doers.

"Getting tuberculosis in the middle of your life is like starting downtown to do a lot of urgent errands and being hit by a bus. When you regain consciousness you remember nothing about the urgent errands. You can't even remember where you were going." Thus begins Betty MacDonald's memoir of her year in a sanatorium just outside Seattle battling the "White Plague." MacDonald uses her offbeat humor to make the most of her time in the TB sanatorium...

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle suggests the radish cure for Patsy's bad habit of not taking a bath.

Francis the talking mule : A bewildered soldier befriends an old army mule, who happens to talk! Second Lieutenant Peter Stirling repeatedly finds himself in a mental hospital after he tries to explain to his unbelieving superior officers that a talking animal rescued him from behind enemy lines. When his four-legged friend appears with plans of heroic action, the U.S. Army faces one of its biggest, and most stubborn, challenges. Bonus material included. The...