The Doll Book of the Month Club: Cozy Classics, Les Miserables?

   Even though I'm away, the Book Club lingers on. This month's Doll Book of the Month isn't about dolls, but the illustrations are all doll. The book is from the Cozy Classics collection, published by Chronicle Books. It's a board book, and so you'd think it must be for very small kids, right? And what is this wonderful, cozy classic for tiny children? Why, Les Miserables, of course.

  Now, if there's a classic that I wouldn't term 'cozy', this is one of them. The story is downright depressing. I mean, there's a reason it's called "Les Miserables", and not "Le Heureux" (The Happy").

  I got this book at Dollar Tree. What made me buy it was the illustrations, which I thought you might enjoy seeing. The book is one word per page, if you don't count the first page, which has a picture over a picture of a printed page. 

Apparently the intention was to introduce kids to the classics, while teaching them simple first reading words.

Other books in the series include "Emma", "Huckleberry Finn", "War and Peace", "Pride and Prejudice", Moby Dick", and "the Wizard of Oz", which probably lends itself better to the format than say, "War and Peace".  But I guess they realize there's something a bit out of the ordinary in the idea, as their website says, "These unique and inventive board books serve as true word primers for toddlers, storytelling vehicles for older kids, and ironic and humorous coffee-table pieces for adults!" 

  The illustrations are photographs, using felted dolls as the characters. 

According to their website, they never use photoshop. All pictures are shot on real locations, or in scenes built especially for the photographs.

  The books are by Jack and Holman Wang. I'm not sure who needle felts the characters. 

  I like the idea of introducing kids to the classics, and the illustrations are reminiscent of the old puppet illustrations in books like the ones I posted about HERE, albeit a lot simpler than the Shiba ones. 

To learn more about the series, and other things the Wangs have done, check out their website at: www.mycozyclassics.com.

  See you next month for another book. That one really will be cozy.

Haul From the Toy Show, Part 1: You Want Some of This Stuff?

  I promised to show you some of the stuff I got at the recent toy show, including the contents of a huge tub that I got for a bargain price. I have been busy getting ready for our trip, and feeling awful, so I am only just getting to part one. I have little excuse because I took the pictures a few days after the show. I am having a problem with the pictures on my computer. The thumbnails aren't all showing up. So to even know where certain pictures are, I have to click on them to see them. It's a real pain.

  Speaking of real pains, the leg is still bothering me. Or, should I say, bothering me again. I have had a couple of periods of respite. It was weird, but last weekend I went with Emma to a Killers concert, and something amazing happened. She let me out of the car near the entrance and went to park the car. I walked up the sloping area up to the entrance, and it was so painful. I was limping. The guy at the door even said to me, "You can make it. You're almost there!" Emma had the tickets on her phone, so I stood outside the door to wait on her. It was cold and I tensed up, as I do in the cold. In a couple of minutes I noticed that my leg wasn't hurting any more. I took a few steps and there was no limp! I had tensed up in such a way that I had apparently freed the nerve that's affecting my leg. I speed walked all over the place in front of the entrance, just enjoying walking without a limp for the first time in months. I kept walking until Emma got back from parking the car about a mile away. (Not literally.) I was fine until I went in and warmed up and my leg pain started coming back again. It wasn't too bad during the show, but it was awful by the time we got back home. (The concert was in Cleveland, so it was a couple of hours after the show. Sitting in the truck on the way home messed with my spine again. So, if the weather is cold enough when we go to Europe, maybe my leg will be fine! My sister-in-law, Diane, (the one with the beautiful view from her garden, which I have shown you.), sent me a thing the other day about how they are expecting unusually cold weather and maybe snow and ice in the north in early November. Great. My leg may be fine, but I'll freeze to death.

On another note, even though I'm not supposed to eat them any more, I grew tomatoes this summer. I got them started late, because my usual method of throwing some seeds into the amaryllis plants at the end of summer and letting them self start the next spring didn't produce any results this year. I think it was because it was so cold far into the Spring, so the amaryllis just stayed inside and didn't get watered as early as they usually do. That's mostly because I asked to do it and he kept forgetting. Anyway, the late start and the incredibly slow growing tomatoes meant that the weather turned cold before they got full grown. Not super cold, but cool enough that they pretty much stopped growing before they got full size. Finally though, it got cold enough at night that I gave up, and picked the tiny tomatoes and brought them inside to ripen. I did that one year, and it took them months to get ripe. No kidding. They laid around forages and didn't rot. They just ripened slowly. So I was surprised to see that one of these guys was ripe already, and I only picked them a week or two ago. So I present too you, my ENTIRE crop of tomatoes this year.

That is IT! And keep in mind, this is a very small aluminum take out container. It's not even pie pan sized.

I ate the ripe one tonight. We'll be off on our trip on Monday, (day after tomorrow), and I'll miss all the others! I waited all summer, and all I got was that one tiny tomato! Good thing I cheated and bought some! Maybe, MAYBE that one other one will be ripe enough to eat Monday, and I can put it on a sandwich to take with me.

But anyway, back to the tub from the show. There was originally a tub and a box. The dealer said dolls in them were $2 a piece, or the whole box or tub for $30. Then it changed to both the tub and the box for $30. Then it was both for $20! Since I had picked out several dolls already I was on the fence. I neither needed nor wanted all the stuff. But it didn't make sense to spend $10 or $12 on a few dolls, when the whole lot was only a little more. One question decided the whole thing: "Do I get the tub too?" The guy said yes, so that settled it. Who can't use a good tub, with a lid? And that thing is heavy duty too. I thought maybe I could offer the rest of the contents that I don't want to you guys for bargain prices and get rid of the stuff that way. There are some interesting dolls in there.

My sister and I condensed the tub and the box down to the tub and a few leftover dolls, and the guy carried it to the car for us. Or, at least, he tried to. We couldn't find the car. My sister insisted we were in a parking lot I was sure we hadn't been near, at an entrance that wasn't the way we entered. Big sisters think they know everything. You know. I tried my horn button on my keys, but we were too far away I guess. My leg was killing me, so my sister went up and asked the people at the gate where we would have parked at the other entrance, and how we could get there. She was sure we would have to be at the other end of the fairgrounds, at the other gate. She was prepared to walk all the way to the other entrance and bring the car back for me. But that sounded wrong to me. I knew we had driven a bit after going through the entrance, and we both realized we'd had our money taken by the people parking the cars, and not at an entrance, and that we had entered the closest building to the entrance we were now near, first. So I went up and asked the people at the gate: If I came in at the other entrance, and my money was taken by the car parkers, and that building is the first one we came to, where would we have been parked? They said, "Oh, you'll be in that parking lot right there." They pointed to the parking lot right before the entrance where we were, on the inside of the fence. We were there all along.

So I walked within sight of where my sister was waiting and got the car, drove the car out and back in, to where my sister was waiting, and we got the stuff in the car. Here's the tub. It's a big one.

This is only part of the stuff. Remember, it wouldn't all fit in the tub. Plus, it's very deep.

Let's look at these kids first.

She's so cute.

Made in the People's Republic of China.

My favourite thing is her shoes.

The other boxed kid.

Also made in the People's Republic f China.

These shoes aren't nearly as interesting.

Then there is this girl.

Her toes are curling up.

And then there's this kid, who did not have a box.

I'm not sure what she's made out of. Her face is all cracked.      

Cute shoes.

  Speaking of shoes, these were in the tub.

  These are not my thing at all, and are definitely available. Anybody want these? One dollar! (plus shipping.)

  There was this Penny brite. For some reason i always feel compelled to rescue Penny Brites. This one is wearing the dress and bloomers from Calico Lassie, other wise known as the Elly May Clampett doll.

  This lady is Little Miss Ginger. 

 

She's even wearing shoes.

Her nails are painted. Not sure if it's original. It looks it. 

She has a nice hair colour, and blue sleep eyes.

  Ginger is about 10 inches tall, and was made by Cosmopolitan in the late 50's. There was also a Ginger who looked like a Ginny, and a baby Ginger too. I know that because we had one. She's actually my sister's doll, and she still has her. 

Her name is written on the back of her head.

Ginger's stringing is a bit loose, but that's fixable. Anybody want her? $15 plus shipping!

Then there's her friend, Miss Nancy Ann.

  Miss Nancy Ann is indeed related to the Nancy Ann Storybook dolls.

She has beautiful hair.

She's also 10 inches tall, and available for adoption. Even nakee she has to be worth $10 plus shipping. Anybody?

  I wanted this beautiful Midge. My sister said, "That's Midge?!" I said yes, and she said, "Midge wishes!"

  Then there was this thing, uh, girl. 

My sister actually looked her up pretty much right away.

Turns out that her name is Carol, The 'Color-Me' doll. 

She came with a pack of crayons you could use to color her hair, eyes, eye brows, mouth, and clothes.

Her legs are stationary, but her arms move, and if you try hard enough, her head slightly turns.

I think she could be coloured over and over again, but I'm not sure how you got the first colouring off of her.

  She's anybody's for $5 and shipping.

  My sister and I both really like this one. She's a souvenir doll from Mexico, probably from the 40's.

She has a great face. 

She has a bit of a pallid complexion though. 

  Her arms and legs are jointed with metal pins.

She has painted on shoes and socks.

  She seems almost to be made of plaster. She's staying.

  Then there is this pair of souvenir dolls from Italy.

They'll be right at home in our house, which was bought in 1929 by an Italian couple named Domenica and Natale. Natale passed away, and Domenica lived here until shortly before we bought the house in 1995.

  I love them. Their faces are made of pressed felt, I think.

Their arms have a cloth shoulder joint that lets them lift up.

Great face! And look at that hair.

The Dolomites are a mountain range in Italy.

More shots of that hair do.

Her basket of full of those cute furry flowers.

She even has moveable legs.

The other one is from another part of Italy.

Piemonte, or Piedmont, is an Italian city at the base of the Alps, that borders France and Switzerland. 

That lacy cap makes me think of Martha Washington.

She has a basket of felt flowers.

They don't look like the anklet type.

Sewn in fingers and painted nails.

  That's it for part one. Part two will have to wait until we get back, at least. I just don't have time to photograph everything and get a post written tomorrow. We leave day after tomorrow! We'll be gone for a while, so if you're interested in anything in this post that was for sale, remember that I won't be able to get back to you for about 5 weeks. So leave a comment with what you're interested in, and your contact information. I won't publish the comments until I get back, and I won't publish those with contact information at all, so no fear. 

  The Doll Book of the Month with be published on time. I'll be setting t up to go on while I'm gone. Now I have a confession to make: I almost forgot to take Tammy World with me! I have had too many physical problems and too much to remember! Ken thought of her today, and brought her upstairs for putting in the case. What would a trip post be without Tammy World to lead the way?

  That's all. See you for the Doll Book of the Month Club at the end of the month. And I'll tell you all about our trip when we get back.