Happy New Year all! I hope everybody enjoyed the last Doll-A-Day for 2019. This year I'm not doing a doll every day. That frees me up to talk, and show you, about a lot of other things. Today we're starting a series I am calling the 'Doll Book of the Month Club'. Once a month we'll see a book that may be about dolls,or have dolls as characters. This will include doll reference books,children's books about doll characters,and maybe some other types of books. Let me know if you have any suggestions. We're starting the year with "The Doll's House" by Rumer Godden.
You may have seen my post on the book "The Story of Holly and Ivy",also by Rumer Godden. (A note here: I gave the wrong link to that post on my post about Ivy's 'Holly' doll. That has been corrected, or you can follow the link above.) Today's book is another by Rumer Godden. "The Dolls' House" was originally published in 1947.
The copy we own has illustrations by Tasha Tudor, which were first included in 1962. The book concerns the Plantagenets, a family of dolls who live in London with two little girls named Emily and Charlotte.
The oldest of the dolls is Tottie, a very old wooden doll who has been in the family for generations.
The dolls are happy, but uncomfortable in their shoe box home. When Tottie tells the others about the doll house,(or, as they say in Britain, the doll's house.),she once lived in when she was owned by Emily and Charlotte's great grandmother and great great aunt, the others long for a house of their own.
Tottie isn't sure the house still exists, but the girls find themselves suddenly the owners of Tottie's old house, when it's passed down to them after a death in the family.
The dolls are thrilled to have a house and things of their own. Life is good and the dolls feel secure.
But can that last long? There has to be a conflict in a book, after all.
The conflict here begins when the girls also inherit Tottie's old housemate. She's a beautiful but conceited and selfish doll named Marchpane, who still considers the doll's house and everything in it, to be hers.
That's where things start to get a bit scary and sad. In fact, the book has a very shocking and sad climax. When I read the book to Ivy when she was a kid, we both had to stop and sit sort of stunned when it happened. We found it very devastating! We still enjoyed the book, but it took us by surprise and we were in tears. According to Ivy, I'm in tears over every book, but even she cried at this one.
So, if you're reading the book to a child, be aware that it might be upsetting to them. Preread the ending,(It happens in chapter 20.), and make sure you think the child you're reading to can handle it.
You can watch parts of the BBC's stop motion animated series based on the book HERE,HERE,and HERE. (It doesn't hold a candle to the book though. There's irony in that statement. If you read the book you'll find out why.) Apparently Rumor Godden originally didn't want the book made into a TV show. She later warmed to the idea and actually had a hand in the making of the series.
That's the first Doll Book of the Month Club entry. I hope you liked it. See you soon!
I don't think I ever read this one but we had her Japanese dollhouse books. "Miss Happiness and Miss Flower" and "Little Plum." The first one of those has directions to make a traditional Japanese house in dollhouse size that I always wanted to try.
ReplyDeleteIvy and I read those too. Maybe I'll do a post on the at some point.
DeleteIs this a book you would recommend for children at the library? If so, then I must find it.
ReplyDeleteI do recommend it. We got Ivy's from the book order forms from school,and she's 20 now.I'm pretty sure it's still in print though.
DeleteIt looks like an interesting book. Thanks for the "heads-up" on the sad part. I cry at "Hallmark" moments on TV so this would probably be too sad for me.
ReplyDeleteYour description makes me think of the Doll People series by Ann M. Martin.
I am so excited about the new "semester."
I LOVE the Doll People books! Ivy and I read all but the last two. Ivy got too old for them. (Not me though!)I read the Doll People Set Sail by myself, but I only just found out there was another one after that! Guess I need to go to the book store!
DeleteOne of my favorite book series from childhood was the Meg mystery books. Meg and the Mystery in Williamsburg was about a doll house!
ReplyDeleteI never read the Meg books,but when I looked them up I saw the Whitman editions, some of which look familiar. I read some of those Whitman books when I was a kid,but not the Meg books.
DeleteI think if it's a good book you certainly remember the sad moments.Ivy remembers The Doll's House's sad moment VERY well!
ReplyDeleteLoved this book but definitely cried at the sad part.
ReplyDeleteAnother doll-themed book you may enjoy is "When the Dolls Awoke." It is also about an inherited dollhouse. I think it is maybe from the 80s?
I think the book you're thinking of is "When the Dolls Woke" by Marjorie Filley Stover. There's another book by the same author that's set earlier in the timeline called "Midnight in the Dollhouse". I do sometimes wonder if Marjorie Filley Stover ever read Rumer Godden's work, since some of the doll characters seem similar to characters that were in Godden's books.
DeleteSigned, Treesa
We read that one! I do remember it quite well,especially Martinique. I'll probably post on that one at some point.
DeleteThis reminds me of a book from my mother's childhoods. I do not know the author. The Norwegian title is "Nøste" (Norwegian for "yarn ball"), and that was the name of the main character. I do not remember much. I think that it was a little girl who played with buttons and an old doll in a cupboard. And she baked more figures with her aunt/grandma. The cake men came to life and the girl got small enough to be the same size as the dolls in the house, if I remember correctly. I think that there was a doll similar to "Tottie" in the book.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds interesting. I wonder if it was ever published in English.
DeleteI am sure it must have been just translated to Norwegian, if the dolls that I think that I remember from it are to be considered.
DeleteI have found my mother's book. The original title was "Bunchy" and the author was Joyce Lankester Brisley. A Google search told me that she was the author of the Molly-Milly-Mandy books. I do believe that I have read a story about that girl too once.
DeleteThanks! I'll look into that.
DeleteIt's available on Amazon,in English, for those who are interested.
DeleteI love the idea of a 'Doll Book of the Month Club'! There are so many great doll books out there, and I'll bet there are a lot of people who read some of them in their childhoods and now can't remember the titles but would enjoy being reacquainted with them. Rumer Godden did write some good ones. But "The Doll's House" was never one of my favorites, because of the ending. I prefer her book "Home Is The Sailor". It also involves a family of dolls and a doll's house, and while there are some emotional lows in the story, everything turns out right in the end. I also enjoy "Miss Happiness and Miss Flower", but "Little Plum" didn't connect with me the same way.
ReplyDeleteSigned, Treesa
I haven't heard of that one. I'll have to look for it. We enjoyed the other two you mentioned, but I didn't think they were as interesting as The Doll's House or Holly and Ivy.
DeleteI think the reason I didn't enjoy "The Story Of Holly And Ivy" more was because I ended up seeing the animated version first, because I wasn't aware the book existed, and my mind kept getting hung up on the differences between the two versions. If I'd read the book first, I may have connected with it more.
DeleteSigned, Treesa
I suppose that can ruin a book for you. Maybe it depends on the quality of the film version. If I'd seen the Harry Potter movies first I probably wouldn't have read the books. On the other hand, I saw the movie of "To Kill a Mockingbird" first,which is excellent,and then read the book because I loved it. I love the book too, and it's one of my favourites.I do always picture the book like the movie though, so much so that I missed a question on a test when we studied the book in high school. The movie and the book ran together so much in my mind that I confused a movie scene with how it happened in the book. My teacher, who hated me, assumed I hadn't read the book,when in fact, I was the only one in the class who had read it before the class,and I reread it for class.
DeleteOMG, I read this book!!! I remember the name of the doll family, the little boy doll and even Tottie! I am so excited. I love when I get another memory back. Luckily for me, I don't remember what happens. So I will just enjoy that I remember reading it.
ReplyDelete