The Doll Book of the(Last!) Month Club: Dancing Dilemma

   I am finally here with last month's Doll Book of the Month! The book this time around is Dancing Dilemma. 

It's one of the books in the Only Hearts Club dolls' book series. It's dated 2005! Ack! Were those dolls THAT long ago?! 

  There were a few Only Hearts Club books.

    These books are mainly there to support the dolls. They're the type of books that were spat out to go with the product, and not much care was taken to make them actually good. There isn't even an author listed anywhere in or on the book. The preface page to the book spells out the theme of the doll idea.

Nice idea, but this whole spiel is then repeated word for word in the first page of the book. Did we really need it twice in a row? Does it sound like I'm getting aggravated with this book already? Not exactly aggravated, but let's say that already I'm not a fan. 

  The book is very simply written. We read about Karina flipping her blonde hair, but we really don't know anything else about her except that she likes dancing and belongs to the Only Hearts Club. She doesn't seem to have anything else in her personality. We also don't get descriptions of anybody else. I think we're just supposed to identify them by what doll they are. We should know what they all look like, right? Karina Grace decides to be nice and help a new girl in her ballet class who is having trouble. Then she gets jealous when her teacher singles out the new girl in class instead of her. She really loses it when said girl decides to audition for the role of Clara in the dance school's production of The Nutcracker, that famous ballet about a weird uncle who gives a girl a creepy nutcracker and life size mice dance all over the stage, that every city in the United States does every Christmas season. Karina even tells her that the judges are hard on people, and that the local school athletes come to watch the rehearsals and make fun of the girls auditioning. She then thinks it over and decides to 'fess up about her lies and help her new friend prepare for the audition. She 'thought with her heart and did the right thing'. Good lesson, just told in a not very exciting or interesting way.

  So do these books have any other qualities that make them worthwhile? Well... I'm reminded of the Barbie and Friends Book Club books Emma used to love when she was a kid. (I'll have to review one of those sometime.) Those books were better written, but I don't think the poor writers got credit in those books either. But one thing that really drew Emma to those books was the photo illustrations.

The photos of dolls doing all sorts of things were well done. The costumes were detailed, and not always just regular Barbie clothes the public could buy. (A little frustrating, I'm sure, but the clothes often made the pictures so much more realistic and interesting.) The backgrounds were sometimes photo trickery, but often were nicely done realistic sets, with lots of details to make them seem more like a real place. 

  But the Only Hearts Club books? Hmm. Well, the dolls all wear clothing available either on a doll, or as an individual fashion. That's one thing that could be considered a positive, I suppose. Kids won't get as frustrated. The sets? Okay. I know there wasn't as much money backing The Only Hearts Club as there was backing Barbie. Mattel was never going to let Barbie look shabby. But I could have done better with these pictures! (To see some of my Only Hearts Club doll photos click 'Only Hearts Club dolls' on the sidebar.) For one thing, I know it is sometimes hard to pose the Only Hearts dolls without making them look awkward, because of the cloth covered, wire filled posable legs and arms. The head has to be properly tilted too. But come on people!

Karina gets distracted and falls in ballet class.

  This picture just looks weird. The head on the girl in the middle is tilted weirdly, and Karina looks like she enjoyed her fall. I also have a problem  with their sets. I know, as I said, they didn't have Mattel money, but I could scrape together a better set at home. That floor doesn't even go all the way to the edge of the picture. I can see where the top of the setting ends. And check out that wall. It only goes so far as a white wall, and then it's made of writing paper!

See what I'm saying?

 You know. The kind kids use when they first start learning how to write. And they reuse that wall as the wall for Karina's bedroom, and the writing paper is even more obvious in that picture.

Notice the chair. It seems to be the prototype for the chair actually sold for the Only Hearts Club dolls. You can see mine in some of my posts, including this one and this one.

 Okay, so the book is very simply written and the pictures are maybe a bit disappointing. but do I think the kids who liked the dolls would have enjoyed it? Yes. Probably. It's always fun seeing your dolls in a book. (My kids enjoyed seeing their dolls of themselves in that movie I made for them, and I'm sure that movie wasn't as well made as this book. It was hilarious though. I am hilarious...)

  So that's the book for September. I will have a book post ready to go before we leave and it will go up while I'm gone. As for the trip, I will be hobbling off to Iceland with Ken later this month. We are also going to Scotland, where we have tickets to see Michael Palin! I have been a Monty Python fan since I was about 14. I have followed everything the members have done over the years. This will make three of them I have seen live. From there we visit a friend of mine I haven't seen since 1986. (The last time I tried to visit her, but she had to work, so we only talked on the phone.) After that we go to Ken's home town and visit with two of his sisters. We have about a week with them. While we're there we are going to visit a couple of Ken's friends, who we saw the last time we were over, and my friend Jenny, who I last saw in 1986. I'm very excited about that. We go see a concert by one of Ken's favourites, Gilbert O'Sullivan. (Anybody remember him? "Alone Again Naturally"?) Then we're off to visit Ken's other sister, and eventually we meet up with Emma and Ivy to check out Nottingham, and visit cousins Ken hasn't seen in decades, and visit the prison where Ken was born. (His mother wasn't an inmate! His father was a prison instructor who taught shoe making to the prisoners!) Then we have a few days in London with the girls for Ivy's birthday. After that another few days with Ken's sisters, a big family get together, and a couple of days with my friend Cheryl, who we saw the last time we were over. Then it's off to visit a friend in Germany, a friend in Belgium, and we get to see Bruges. We also might get to see a friend in Strasburg, France. We end the trip with a couple of days in Paris. It's probably our last trip over, so we've tried to fit in everything and everybody we might have wanted to see. Unfortunately the trains in England just went on strike and are going to be very unpredictable  while we are there!

  I don't know what I'm going to do about the leg, except suffer. I still haven't located a new doctor, since mine moved away. Nobody seems to be taking new patients and I'm running out of time before the trip. I've been trying Icy Hot on it but I don't think it's having any affect. I think the only thing that makes a difference is staying off my feet, and, in fact, off my butt too. Laying on my right side seems to be the only pain free position, and sometimes not even that. It has to be a nerve in my back, causing a leg muscle  to tighten. 

  I have a post coming up about the big load of dolls I got at the toy show Saturday, and dolls that you will be able to get your hands on that were in it!  We'll see that in a couple of days. See you then.