The Doll Book of the Month Club: Drusilla

   The last Doll Book of the Month Club entry for the year, (But not forever. I'll still be posting the monthly book.), is Drusilla, by Emma L. Brock, who also did the illustrations.

  My poor copy got ruined in the fire. But I had been wanting to read it myself, and I wanted to share it with you, so I rescued it as best I could. It's a bit sooty on the outside, and mildew stained and torn up, but still readable.

It was published in 1937, and was in quite nice condition before the fire.

  Drusilla is a corn husk doll, made for a little girl named Sarah, by 'Aunt Polly', (who isn't really an aunt, just a friend of Sarah's grandma.). 

  Drusilla is made of corn husks, with stitched in jet bead eyes and a red silk mouth. Now, I've attempted to make corn hush dolls, and I don't know how you stitch anything into something that dry and brittle without it falling apart. But...

  I'm a lover of lists, and making them. I enjoyed the bit about what all was made for Drusilla: her dress, her bonnet, her bed and bedding, etc. 

  The book is told from Drusilla's point of view. But after the discovery that the family is moving to more fertile lands in Minnesota, the action pretty much just follows the family's story...until the last part of the book, where Drusilla becomes the focal point.

  As a lover of lists I also was interested in the family's choices of what to take with them on the wagon trip to Minnesota. Things had to be chosen carefully because there was very little room. Unlike most wagons to the Promised Land, this family also took an extra uncovered one to haul extra stuff. Still, Aunt Polly had a list that would choke a horse, and had to leave a lot of it behind.  The things she managed to sneak on the trip with her did prove useful along the way. In case you haven't figured it out, Aunt Polly is the comic relief in this book. She gets more page time than Drusilla.

  The trip is fairly uneventful most of the way. The wagon does get stuck in a huge pot hole, and there's a big rainstorm. But other than those things,  it's pretty much ride, eat, sleep, which I'm sure is how a lot of those trips went.

 But toward the end of the book things get more lively...until they don't. The trip continues after one exciting night. Then, Drusilla, sitting in the back of the wagon on the bag of corn seed, plops off when the wagon goes up a steep bank, crossing a creek. She lays there in the grass, while the wagon goes on to their destination, at least a day away.

  Will Drusilla be found? Will Sarah come back for her somehow? What will happen to her? I won't ruin it for you. 

  I enjoyed "Drusilla". I think my kids would have liked it when they were little. It's an easy read. The illustrations are cute too. Can recommend. But be forewarned that there are some stereotypical depictions of Native Americans. I'm also not sure about Sarah's father's advice to 'Treat them like White men, and they'll act like White men. Treat them like Red men, and they'll act like Red men." I think, unintentionally, he was saying that if you treat them civilly they'll act civilly, instead of treating them like they are about to attack, and attacking them first. That's obviously the right way to treat anybody if you want them to react in a friendly manner. It's an opening for discussion.

  That's the book for this month. We'll look at another doll based book next month. I've got some good ones lined up for next year.