The Doll Book of the Month Club: Barbie and Skipper Go Camping

   I'm back again. I can't claim to have been busy working on the house, because I haven't gotten nearly as much done with the house as I should have. I have sanded part of the bathroom to get rid of the soot, because it wasn't scrubbing off. But then Ken stole my step ladder. I took down some of the sooty wallpaper. I have been going through stuff in the bedroom and cleaning soot off it. I have cleaned some books and DVDs off that were in there. We've been slowly washing sheets and pillow cases out of the linen cupboard. 

   I have been doing some stuff with family pictures that has taken some of my time. I don't know if you have ever even heard of Shutterfly, but it's a site that prints pictures, etc. I am always fighting with the website because it always has problems. I always swear I'm never going to use it again, but I always do. I was in a battle with Shutterfly the night before last that kept me up until 7AM yesterday morning. I was trying to simply finish up a photo book I had been working on. What should have been a  short job of adding a few last minute pictures turned into Night of the Living Shutterfly. It was a battle to finish before my discount code expired, and I lost. I knew the deadline had passed, but I kept going, hoping it might take the code because I had started before it expired. I tried to get hold of the supposedly 24/7 customer help before the deadline to let them know it was their fault I was about to lose my discount and have them stop it expiring. Of course, they were down for maintenance. 

  I had tried to add pictures to the project, but  it went against my click and added them randomly to the book itself, erasing my previous pictures, not only from the pages, but from the whole project. They all had to be reloaded.! My carefully arranged, chronologically ordered pictures. It happened at least three times. It took forever to even put the book back the way it was, let alone put the new pictures in. 

  I was up so late that I got up super late yesterday. Then I had to get a hold of Shutterfly customer assistance, and tell them my tale of woe, and have them give me that discount. By the time I got done dealing with them, (and to their credit, they did give me the discount I was supposed to have used),  and talking to my sister, I hadn't eaten all day. So I went to make something to eat. Those teeny tiny potatoes should only take two or three minutes in a microwave, right? I cooked them for three to make sure. While that was going, I fed the cats a soft packet of cat food I got at the bin store. The potatoes came to a stop. Then I put cheese on, and cooked them for another minute. The cheese didn't melt, but I had another type too. So I put the second layer of cheese on and put it back in for another minute...then another. The cheese was molten. The plate was so hot I could hardly hold it. The potatoes had to be cooked, right? I trudged back upstairs to the computer because I was supposed to call my sister back on messenger and talk while I ate. But I tried to eat a potato, and they were still as hard as rocks, or, in this case, uncooked potatoes. So I trudged back downstairs to heat them some more. After another 3 minutes I said, 'screw it, I'm eating them if they're done or not', and trudged back upstairs. 

  What greeted me was....well, let's just say the new cat food didn't sit well with somebody. I suspect it was Joey, who throws up every time he eats anyway. Not only that, but he had done his deed in the middle of my bed. It went all the way through the comforter to the blanket below. Only the bottom sheet was still dry. So I took the comforter the the bathroom and shook it off into the toilet. Then I had to rinse the rest off in the sink. Once I moved the comforter to the sink I saw that part of the cat food clump had gone onto the seat instead of in. So once I rinsed the comforter, I had to sanitize the toilet seat, and then the sink. Then I sat down to eat and the boiling margarine on the plate splashed me in the chest when I tried to slice a potato. After I ate I now also had to go into the bedroom and find a blanket or something that wasn't smoke smelling and covered with soot. Not an easy task, but otherwise I would have had no covers last night. Even the sheets and pillow cases in the linen cupboard on the landing are sooty. I found a minimally sooty and smoke smelling blanket and comforter and pulled out some more things to wash today. By that time I was so tired that I just wanted to go to bed. And that's why you didn't get your book yesterday!

  So here is the book for February. It's "Barbie and Skipper Go Camping".

 It's a Whitman Tell-A-Tale book from the 70's. The copyright says '1977 1973', so I am assuming it was first printed in 1973, and reprinted in 1977. The Whitman Tell-A-Tale books were smaller than Golden Books, and aren't remembered nearly as well as them either. I had several of them when I was a kid, and they often had cute stories and nice illustrations. This one has neither really.  

Barbie is a redhead on the cover, but a blonde in the actual story.

It's a fairly predictable story and the illustrations are, well, not my type of art.

Notice the Superstar Barbie logo, and hey! The book actually has an author. It's Eileen Daly.

  There is one thing about this book that kind of interesting though. Look! Barbie really does have parents!

It's a sighting of the rare and elusive Mr. and Mrs. Roberts!

 Now days the story would come off a bit racist. There are some stereotypes going on here. 

  So the kid is a Native. That means he's never heard of a camper? And I bet he was really enthralled by that sleeping bag. They probably don't have those in their TeePees, right Barbie? Geez.

  Skipper comes off as a spoiled brat. So the guy won't loan her a pony and she wanted to have a pony of her own to ride that weekend. Well hey, not his problem. She knew she didn't have a pony when she got there, so stop pouting about it.

  As I said, it's also predictable. Barbie gets to save the day and prove that all 'Outsiders' aren't so bad. Except for Skipper, who has been a total spoiled butt this whole time.

 

  But of course she gets her pony for the day anyway.

Why does Petie have 5 o'clock shadow?

  I suppose kids might enjoy this book, but should they? I would have been uncomfortable reading it to my kids.  There would have been a lot of explaining and saying how not all Natives use the word Pow Wow, etc. And also how Skipper is a spoiled brat...

  That's the book for February. Most of my doll books are packed away somewhere, but I have a few set aside. Hopefully the March book will be on time.