The Doll Book of the Month Club: The Little Wooden Doll

 Here it is the end of the month already. Ivy will be starting classes again tomorrow, and going back to college the next week. I have been spending as much time as I can with her before she leaves  home again. It makes me nervous that she is going back too, with the virus still ongoing. 

  While Ivy is elsewhere, it's time for  this month's Doll Book of the Month Club entry.  This month we're looking at The Little Wooden Doll, by Margery Williams Bianco.

The book can be expensive, but I found this discarded library edition from the 1940's for a really cheap price online. 

  Originally published in 1925, The Little Wooden Doll tells the story of, well... a little wooden doll. 

She's been relegated to the attic, where she has spent many lonely years. Her friends are the mice, and  the old spider. She's invited to the mice parties, but there's always the underlying loneliness in her heart.

 "On summer days, when the sun shone, a beam of light came through the attic window. Golden dust motes danced in the beam, and it was beautiful to see. Sometimes, then, a bumblebee would blunder in, or a great, spotted butterfly, or sometimes a swallow would perch at the open window, and all these had news to bring of the outside world: of the cornfields and the flowers and the blue sky. And sometimes, at night, when the moonlight lay on the attic floor, the mice would give parties, and to these the little wooden doll was always invited. "

  She barely remembers being loved by a child, but she feels the empty spot where a child should be in her life.

 "On the whole the little wooden doll had a pleasant life. Only sometimes, toward dusk, when the mice were busied with their own affairs, when the spiders dozed in their hammocks, and only the little gray moths fluttered to and fro, a feeling of sadness came over her. For dolls are made for children and deep in every doll's heart there is a longing to be loved by a child. And at times, when the rain beat on the shingles and the smell of wet earth came up through the attic window, something stirred in the little doll's memory. She recalled dimly a time when some one had really loved her, some one who had carried her about and put her to bed at night, and on rainy days like these played with her on the nursery floor. It was so long ago that the little wooden doll could not remember very clearly, but she knew that these things had once happened, and she thought that if only some little child would come again to the attic, and play with her, she would be quite happy."

  One day the mice, who are wonderful eavesdroppers, report that children are coming to stay in the house. The little wooden doll is very excited, and tries to tidy herself, for she has become very dusty in all her years in the attic. The mice help with the spots she can't reach, and the little wooden doll readies herself to be found by the children, in her corner by a stack of old books.

  The children don't come to the attic until they venture up one rainy day. 

They do find the little wooden doll, but it's not the happy ending the little wooden doll was expecting. The children think she's old fashioned, and ridicule her for her dirtiness, her lack of clothes, and her missing paint. When they are called downstairs the little wooden doll is dumped on the window ledge.

   Whether  she falls by accident, or lets herself fall out of hopelessness, the little wooden doll drops out the window and falls into the flower bed below. Her mice friends come to her rescue, of course, and in a "Wizard of Oz"-like moment, ("Stay with us then Dorothy. We all love you. We don't want you to go.") , ask the little wooden doll to let them take her back to the attic to stay with them, because they love her. 

  But it's decided that the little wooden doll needs to be brought back to her original beauty so a child will love her. There are wonderful descriptions of how the animals and insects transform the little wooden doll.

 I'll save that pleasure for your own reading experience. I'll also save the end of the book for your own reading and not spoil the surprise.

  Although the book is so well written in so many other ways, the ending, which is the payoff we've been waiting for, seems a little rushed. It's as if someone told the author, "You only have a few more pages Margery. Wrap this story up."  I still recommend the book though. The old fashioned, flowery storytelling is wonderful and warm. The story is familiar, the old tale of a toy who longs to be loved by a child, but it's beautifully told. Small children can enjoy the book, as can adults! It may be a bit slow moving for very small kids, but all kids are different. Emma was sitting for old fashioned books like this when she was less than 4, but then, that's Emma.

  Oddly enough, Margery Williams Bianco wrote a horror story too, a werewolf story called, "The Thing in the Woods", published in 1914. For some reason it was revised for American publication, and a pseudonym, Harper Williams, was used. Even more odd, H.P. Lovecraft was a fan of the book. He wrote a poem called "On The Thing in the Woods by Harper Williams", and some believe the book influenced Lovecraft's own creepy book, "The Dunwich Horror"! (I really dislike Lovecraft stuff. It's way too crawly for me.) 

 The Little Wooden Doll has lovely illustrations by Margery's daughter, Pamela Bianco. 

Pamela illustrated the book at the age of 19. By that age she was an old hand at art, having been something of a child prodigy. She had exhibitions of her work in London, New York, and cities across the United States before she was 17. Pamela wrote and illustrated many books, and illustrated books by other authors as well, including her mother's, "The Skin Horse". Her work is shown in many museums, and a retrospective of her work was held in London in 2004.

  Some of you may know Margery Williams Bianco's most well known book, the heartbreaking, "The Velveteen Rabbit". Ken and I used to read "The Velveteen Rabbit" to Emma when she was very small. It's a beautiful and beautifully written story, but as I said, absolutely heartbreaking. Ken and I would sit on opposite ends of the couch, with Emma in the middle, and take turns reading the book to her, each one passing it to the other when they were crying too hard to continue. It went back and forth until we reached the end of the book. Ken didn't help me read it to the other kids, as I recall. I know I read it to Ivy alone. (When I cried reading a book to Ivy she just looked at me and asked me why I was crying. She still makes fun of me when I cry during movies.) Maybe some day I'll review "The Velveteen Rabbit" here. I expect I'll be brought to tears just doing that. 

  That's the doll book of the month. I'll see you again soon for all sorts of posts, including the long promised Maru and Friends review.