The Doll Book of the Month Club: Raggedy Ann Stories by Johnny Gruelle

   Well, we're back from our trip, but obviously the Doll Book of the Month is late. That's because, like everything else connected with our trip, something screwed up. We got home to find that our internet had been out for days. Ken contacted our internet provider and we were told they could get to us about December 5th. I, in the background, shouted, "That's WEEKS!" Apparently the person on the phone heard me, as she said they might be able to expedite things. 'Might' is the operative word there, as they didn't actually show up until the 5th. Ken suggested I write my review in notepad and copy and paste it to the blog. But another problem is, the paper with all my passwords on it, that I always keep in my desk drawer, has disappeared. As I alluded to at the beginning of this post, that is a carry over from the world's most bad luck trip, which we just returned from. Not that we didn't have a good time, and things weren't pleasant most of the time. But Ken says he was talking to someone at work after we returned, and he asked them to name every bad thing that could happen on a trip. They did, and all of it had happened to us on this one, and more besides that no one would even think of. But never mind about that. I'll cover that in my posts on the trip. This is our Doll Book of the Month Club post. And the book this, (or, rather, last) month is "Raggedy Ann Stories", by Johnny Gruelle.

  I won't bore you by repeating the story of Johnny Gruelle and Raggedy Ann's origins in full. For that, I'll refer you to my 2014 post on my childhood Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls. I will only give you the basics here. Johnny Gruelle created the Raggedy Ann doll after either finding a doll his mother had once made for his sister when she was a child, or when his daughter found an old rag doll in his mother's attic. There are conflicting stories. He received a patent for the Raggedy Ann doll in 1915, the same month his young daughter Marcella, for whom Raggedy Ann's owner in the stories is named, passed away from vaccination poisoning. (That's a whole tale in itself too, for which I also refer you to the 2014 post.) The first Raggedy Ann book was published in 1918. So the doll far preceded the books.

   Johnny Gruelle, apart from being an author, was also an accomplished artist, and the original Raggedy Ann book is blessed with his beautiful illustrations. 

  The stories are sweet and simple, mostly focusing on Raggedy Ann and how the other toys adore her.

 They adore her because she is kind, loving, and honest. But she isn't sickening, which is nice. 

  This is one of those books about what toys get up to when no one is around. 

As old fashioned as these stories are, I can see them still appealing to children today. I'm not talking about modern Raggedy Ann stories, because I know pretty much nothing about those. But this book is a pleasant and entertaining read. I wish I had had a copy when Ivy was small, because she loved Ann, even if she pretty much ignored Andy, who had always been my favourite. 

The character of Uncle Clem looks very like Andy, who hadn't yet been invented.

  If you do look for a copy of this book, which has probably been reprinted many times, (My copy s quite old.), try to find one with Johnny Gruelle's original illustrations. 

They are absolutely beautiful and the modern illustrations can't hold a candle to them.