This month's Doll Book of the Month Club selection is "WIlliam's Doll", by Charlotte Zolotow.
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| The covers are out of order. Blame the computer. |
It's the story of little boy named William who longs for a doll. William's brother and the boy next door laugh at him and call him a sissy.
William's grandmother visits, and buys him the doll he's been dreaming of. She explains to William's father that the reason William needs a doll is so he can learn to take care of a child and grow up to be a good father.
The book was written in 1972, so the reasoning behind why it's ok for William to have a doll is still based on gender stereotypes. William can have a doll, but it has to be so he can be a good dad when he grows up.
It's made clear that William is a 'real boy', because he can play basketball well, and likes his train. That makes it 'okay' that he wants a doll too. How about if William wants a doll just because he likes dolls? What if he wants a doll and isn't good at basketball, or interested in trains? How about just letting William enjoy what he enjoys, and not forcing him to do things he doesn't necessarily want to do just because it makes his dad more comfortable? And how about telling the other kids that it's wrong to make fun of others, and that everybody is different and should be accepted just the way they are? So while the book might have been ground breaking at the time, it's outdated and not exactly what it needs to be.
Charlotte Zolotow is also the author of a book I love called, "Mr Rabbit and the Lovely Present". The book is very simple, and somewhat repetitive, but it has the most gentle story and gorgeous illustrations by Maurice Sendak.
You can hear "William's Doll" read aloud by going HERE.
I have this book in my library of children's books. I like that Grandma has the last word. Well, sort of.
ReplyDeleteI always hate that children get gender typed. I hate the word "tom boy" also. To me it implies that girls are "acting" like boys. Why can't behavior just be behavior, no matter who does it?
Okay, I will step off of my soapbox now (laugh).
You stay on that soapbox Dorothy. I totally agree with you.
DeleteIt may be outdated by today's standards, but I still love this book!
ReplyDeleteSadly, many places this book is still introdusing new ideas to narrow minded people. It is silly that William has to like "boy toys" like basketballs and trains to be "a real boy." But happily many places kids can enjoy what they like, and still be what they are. When I was a little girl, I had both baby and Barbie dolls, a collection of tiny cars, and played cowboy games with my older brother. And that was just 10-15 years after this book came out. Not sure if any boys I knew played with dolls, though. But 5-10 years ago, when I worked in a nursery, they had some old books where this boy had a cloth doll that was one of his friends and companions. In one book, he finds her outside, dirty and neglected, and she is taken inside and washed, and then she gets new clothes and new hair. If I remember correctly, she got dirty again very soon, because this boy mostly played outside and she was with him doing all sorts of dirty and funfilled things.
ReplyDeleteThe doll in that book sounds like my son Fuzzy's doll, 'Fuzzy the Doll'. The doll got lost and I had to make a new doll look like him, which involved rubbing his hair in the dirt and sanding his fingertips off on the cement! I had 'girls' and 'boys' toys too. I meant to say something about how no one ever says anything when a girl plays with 'boy' toys, but it's another story when it's the other way around.
DeleteI tried to Google those books. I thought that they were from the 70s, based on the illustrations and the fact that they reminded me of a Norwegian book series det in the 50s. But they were from the early 90s, and were re-released with "better" illustrations (same motifs, same illustrator, but not as cozy) in the late 00s.
DeleteYou had to make the new Fuzzy the doll look old and used? That is exactly what happened in the book I was referring to. My new research told me that the boy did not feel that his friend was herself anymore after getting cleaned up and fixed, so he made her more herself.
Yes. I was thinking that too. No one commented on us girls playing with "boy toys," but we never saw boys with "girl toys" (besides when my cousin and I made her brother play Barbies with us, which rarely happened - we usually played with "boy" or gender neutral toys).
Here you can see the first pages of the mentioned book in Swedish (just press "Les utdrag"):
Deletehttps://www.adlibris.com/no/bok/sune-och-stackars-skadan-9789172992313
Luckily boys in Norwegian nurseries play with both baby and Barbie dolls, and kitchen toys and everything whenever they want. And girls play with Lego and cars, as they should. Some places they work with getting toucher girls, by having play groups with only girls learning to play roughly and stand up for themselves. There are not as many play groups where they teach boys softer play, because that has become more natural, and the boys choose to play softly often enough already when in the whole children's group/when every child desides for themselves what toys they want to play with for a while.
DeleteIt sounds like Norway is ahead of some places in letting kids be who they are. Good for them.
DeleteWhen Fuzzy lost Fuzzy the Doll he was 4 years old, and Ivy had just been born. In fact, he lost Fuzzy in the hospital. He was so little, and I didn't want him to resent her because he lost Fuzzy, who he was so attached to. I got a new doll like the one Fuzzy the Doll was made from, and tried to make him look old, so Fuzzy would think he was the same doll. Fuzzy was constantly asking me, "When is Fuzzy going to come home?" When I got him ready I leaned the broom against the doorframe and put Fuzzy the Doll on top of the handle, and rang the doorbell. I called Fuzzy down to answer the door, and he found Fuzzy. "Fuzzy's back!" I explained Fuzzy's change of clothes, (Because I couldn't find the same clothes he was lost in.) by saying he had gone shopping and bought new clothes.
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