The Doll Book of the Month Club: Moveable Mabeline

   This month's Doll Book of the Month Club entry is "Movable Mabeline", by Karen Ackerman. 

  The book, originally published in 1990, concerns two little girls, sisters named Isobel and Mimi, who see a beautiful doll in a shop window. The doll, 'Moveable Mabeline',  is sitting in her own little white 'straw' chair, and the girls are instantly in love with her. 

They are so taken by her that they dare to enter the grown up shop.

The shop clerk even let's them hold Mabeline.

The story seems to be set in the 1920's, or maybe 1930's. It may be during the depression. In any case, the girls know the wonderful doll, with a pink satin dress and movable joints, is certainly too expensive for them to hope for. 

"Moveable Mabeline! Yours and mine! Yours and mine!"

But they can't stop thinking about her. For weeks they drive their mother crazy, talking about Movable Mabeline. The girls have dolls at home, mostly worn hand me downs, (They look pretty good in the illustration!), but Mabeline is still on their minds.

  Finally, they accompany their mother on a shopping trip. They pass the store where Movable Mabeline is sitting in her chair in the window. They are excited to show her to their mother, but Mother just pats their heads.

  After that day the girls pass the shop window again, and Movable Madeline is gone.  The girls believe that their mother bought Movable Madeline, and is keeping her as a surprise for them. But day after day passes, and Movable Mabeline never appears. 

  The next year 'moveable' dolls are everywhere. The girls both get one for Christmas, but they still long for Mabeline.

  Will they ever see Movable Maybelline again? Where is she?

  It's a nice book, with a slightly less than predictable ending. It's not the most obvious ending, but maybe the next most obvious. That's okay, because this is a kids' book, and that's the way they usually work. 

  Author Karen Ackerman is another native Ohioan, from Cincinnati. Among her many awards, she won the Caldecott Medal for her 1989 book, "Song and Dance Man".

  The pretty, soft pictures are by Linda Allen, a protégé' of   Tasha Tudor, who has written and illustrated her own books, including The Giant Who Had No Heart.                           .

  The age recommendation for this short picture book is 7 to 9 years old. 

  That's the book for this month. I'll see you again soon!

Review Time Part 2! Maru and Friends Winter Wear for Dolls

   This is the second part of my review of Maru and Friends doll coats. Don't forget to check out Part 1, and the other beautiful coats and winter wear HERE.

You saw 'Cache Chic', bottom right in Part 1. This time you'll see the other, 'Snow Flakes'.

   But first, here's brief update on what's been happening with me. I am still in birthday month mode. (Ken always says we get to enjoy our whole birthday month.) Yesterday for my birthday month celebrations/Fun Day, Ken and I went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I enjoyed it a lot more than Ken, I know. There was a new Beatles Get Back exhibit.

And in the gift shop I bought Paul a bass, so he can feel complete.

  Ken was most impressed by Sam Cooke's Hasselblad camera.

But then, he would be. Cameras are much more his thing than rock and roll.

  My ears were popping on the way to Cleveland. I assumed there was some altitude difference, although I didn't remember it ever happening before when we went there. After we left the Hall of Fame I got really woozy, dizzy. I started to get the feeling that I wanted to lay my head down. I always get that feeling when my otoconia, or 'ear rocks' get dislodged. This time the feeling was also accompanied by a loud hum in the ear that I already have tinnitus in. So my usual 'test pattern' sound was joined by this loud, annoying hum. I can ignore my tinnitus when there are other sounds going on, but this hum was really loud and also had a vacuuming noise to it. As the evening went on the dizziness got worse. I tried to remember the thing I was told to do to get my otoconia back in place. I must have looked pretty weird in the restaurant when I started rolling my head around my shoulders, but it did help. It didn't completely clear up the dizziness, and when I left the restaurant I'm pretty sure people thought Ken was having to help his drunken wife walk to the car. (Never had a drink in my life, honestly.)  On the way home my ears popped again and the hum was much more quiet, but my voice sounded weird to me. Ken sounded normal, but my own voice sounded to me like it had a weird science fiction echo noise, like the Gargoyles voices in that old TV movie. When we finally got home, (It's a two hour drive.), I still felt awful and the hum had turned into what I described to Ken as 'the hum the subway rails make in Beneath the Planet of the Apes'. (Actually, it wasn't the rails, it was some hand rails that hummed whenever they were touched, serving as a sort of security system, but Ken automatically knew what I meant.) It's the next afternoon, and I still feel a bit nauseous. Luckily, the hum is gone though.

  Now, let's get on to those coats. You'll recall that the last time I reviewed the two outfits on either end of this picture.

Those were Icicles in the Snow, on the left, and Cache Chic, on the right. Today we're going to look at the other two, Snow Flakes, second from the left, and the Pea Coat, second from the right.

  Before I get into it, let me remind you that if you decide you are interested in any of these coats, or the dolls, or anything from Maru and Friends, there is a sale on for this month, March 2022, for free shipping if you live in the lower 48 states of the United States. That sale runs until the end of this month.

  The cream coloured coat, hat, and boots set is shown here on Pepper, a 13 inch Mini Pals doll. This set is also available for the larger 20 inch Maru and Friends dolls as well.

The Pea Coat is only available for the larger dolls, and is being modeled by the 20 inch Maru doll.

  This coat is so soft and cozy.

It has a soft faux fur collar and cuffs, and trim along the bottom.

I have said before that the doll clothes from Maru and Friends are practically like human clothes. The fabrics are so nice, and the construction of the clothes are also top quality.

There is one thing about this coat that really surprised me and had me enthused.

Can you guess what it is?

 

It's not the plushness of that faux fur along the bottom.

Or the cuddly softness of the fabric.(Although that's great.)

It's not way it fits so nicely.

It's those buttons! Not only are they cute heart shaped buttons.

The great things about these buttons is that they really button!

I was just saying in part one how kids can't learn to use buttons and snaps from doll clothes any more because they all use Velcro. Then I discovered that this coat has real working buttons and button holes! I love it!

If you'll recall, in part one of this review I showed you the tiny heart shaped buttons on the Icicles in the Snow outfit. They match these, only they are even smaller. That, along with Icicles in the Snow not having a coat of it's own, is why I think it's a shame that this coat is cream coloured instead of white. It would go so well with 'Icicles' ,(and I could feel like my poor doll wasn't freezing!)

Not that it doesn't look great in cream. It's just that they would have gone together so well.

  The coat also has a matching hat with faux fur trim.

It stays on really well. This kid got turned every which way while I was posing the dolls for photos, and it never even attempted to fall off.

It wasn't tight or hard to get on and off. It is just well fitting.

There are also the boots.

I believe it was Raging Moon who pointed out in part one's comments that I probably have the boots on the wrong feet, because they probably Velcro on the inside, not the outside. I guess I thought more of them closing on the outside, like real boots. 

 In any case, the boots do have closures on the side, and they are easy to get on and off because of it.

Yeah. I think Raging Moon is right.

Snow Flakes is a cute set. I love dolls in coats!

Now for our other coat set. I LOVE this set! I nearly bought it once, but procrastinated too long and the sale ended. When Maritza, the founder of Maru and Friends, was saying she'd like to send some outfits, I mentioned that coats would be great, as we were expecting snow. I said, depending on the size of the things she'd be sending, the Pea Coat would be great because I really like it. She then sent three outfits AND the Pea Coat! I was thrilled, because I really do love this coat. If I was still young and thin, I would wear a coat like this myself!

I'm not sure if the coat is really wool or not, but it feels like it. The tag inside the hat says dry clean or hand wash, cold, only.

The coat is a dark wine colour, and both the coat and hat have stitching details in dark pink.

The hat fits nicely. The hat has a folded edge, as do the cuffs of the coat sleeves.

And I mentioned the quality of Maru and Friends clothes: the hat and coat are both fully lined. Even the coat sleeves are lined.

  The coat is nicely fitted, and yet was easy to get on over Maru's clothes.

This coat is also my favourite colour.

On the website the coat comes with back boots. My coat was sort of an extra addition, as a favour, so I didn't get the boots. Marita offered to send them, but I felt she had sent quite enough already. I was happy to get my favourite coat. But if you order the coat from the website, it does include boots.

In this picture you can see that the collar is...asymmetrical

The white streaks in these pictures are falling snow! It was falling so fast that all the dolls got wet, and the box I had them all in got almost soggy. I went in with very cold fingers! I'm pretty sure that I caught the last snow of the season...we hope.

There's a beautiful fittedness to the coat.

It's a slim fit, but flares out slightly at the bottom.

I love the double buttons on the coat. The buttons aren't functional though. The coat closes with a set of metal snaps.

This picture allows you to see the combination of colours that make up the rich colour of the coat.

There is detailing down the back of the coat too, and a back half belt, which is actually called a Martingale. Martingales were invented for military coats that were also used as blankets, so that when being worn as a coat, the extra fabric was held out of the way.

Yes, that's real snow.

This has to be my favourite out of all the coats in the review.

The little hat is cute too.

I definitely felt like Maru was warm in this one!

  The only drawbacks to the coats were that the collars kept the dolls from being able to pose looking down! These dolls have good movement in their heads, allowing for some cute posing, but the thick collars got in the way. But they looked warm!

  So, yes, I love these coats. The quality of the fabrics, detailing, and construction of the coats is practically like human clothing. Snow Flakes especially is made of a soft cozy fleece that is so nice to cuddle. The coats and the boots are easy to get on and off. The hats actually stay on the dolls' heads.

  Here's a behind the scenes shot. I had photographed the group at the edge of the parking lot, but I wanted a shot where the ground could be mistaken for snow, just in case we didn't get the snow that had been predicted. The only problem? There was no ground that looked white enough. So I considered trying to find a way to use our white car to get the effect. Bad idea really. I'm not tall enough to shoot straight across the top of the car and only get a slim white line and no other ground in the background. But before I could really try it out anyway, my camera battery died.

The hood was too shiny, but the roof is dull, so up she went! Notice the other girls hanging out in the background. 

Here are my poor confused daffodils freezing in the snow. 

My lilacs were budding already too.

  So those are the reviews. There is so much more stuff coming up! I am falling way behind. My sister and I are going to a toy show this Saturday, Ivy is coming home for Spring Break, and I have so much stuff to show you! See you soon!