The Return of the Doll Book of the Month Club! A Question of Time

   I know. The Doll Book of the Month Club has been on hiatus for a while. But it's back! I found a book to do, so we're back in business. 

  The book in question is, "A Question of Time" by Dina Anastasio. It was first published in 1978,  That's handy to know, considering the timeline of the story. The illustrations are by Dale Payson.

  Apparently the author's daughter's doll collection inspired the book.

  As the book opens, Syd Stowe is told that she and her parents will be moving from New York City, to a small town in Minnesota, leaving behind her great grandfather, Jake. 

  Jake left the same small town in 1910, as an 18 year old, to pursue his dream of acting in New York City. He only returned once, and he's in his 90's now. Syd hates leaving her beloved New York City, and her best friend, Jill. And she's determined to hate her new home town.

  Syd is finally persuaded to have a look around her new town. She visits a store, where there are some very interesting dolls on display. They are very detailed, hand carved wooden dolls. On one visit to the store, an old man arrives and delivers a new one. The shop lady tells Syd that his name is Mr. Stowe, (Syd's last name!), and that he makes the dolls. He wants them to all be sold together, and he still has one to make, so she isn't selling them yet.

  Of course, Syd is curious: about Mr. Stowe, (Is he related to her somehow?), about the dolls. (Supposedly they are based on real people. What is the doll made in a reaching position supposed to be doing?) She finds the exact people the dolls seem to be based on, in an old book about the town that she finds in the library. But then the book disappears. Mr. Stowe gives his address to the lady in the shop, but the only house there has been deserted for years, after the family who lived there died.

  Syd writes to her friend Jill often. As time passes though, she becomes caught up in unraveling the mystery surrounding the dolls. She meets a girl named Laura, who plays marbles on the sidewalk in front of a store, while waiting for her grandfather. Oddly, she looks just like one of the dolls. Even the bag of marbles looks like the one the doll carries. Syd becomes friends with the shy and depressed looking Laura.

  Does Syd solve the mystery? Why is a kid in the late 70's playing marbles? Is Syd related to the doll maker?

  Okay, I'm not going to discuss the ending completely. I'll just say that the book wasn't bad, but there were some plot holes. I would have liked it when I was a kid, because I loved this sort of thing: mystery, ghostly stuff, time travely things. There are some spoilers below you can check out after reading the book. My opinions on those plot holes.. 

  The book doesn't quite make sense. The house has been deserted and everybody in the town thinks Jake was murdered, because one night there was an argument, heard by passing locals, where someone threatened to kill someone. Then he disappeared, (to New York.). Okay. This is a small town, where everybody seems to know about everybody. Surely the whole town would have known that Syd's great grampa left town to become an actor. Maybe the family didn't like to talk about it, but wouldn't someone have asked where he was? If he left town, it was probably on a train, so wouldn't someone have seen him? And if there was suspicion of a murder, wouldn't the police have questioned his family?  And if the rest of the family died in a boating accident, everybody must have known about that too. After all, Syd finds it in the old newspapers. So why do they think the house is haunted by a murdered family?  Didn't anybody try to contact Jake when his family died? Okay, maybe they didn't know where to get in touch with him. Or, maybe they still thought his dad murdered him. But when he came back and his whole family was gone, didn't he ask anybody in town if they knew what happened? Surely somebody would have known. And they would have known he wasn't murdered if he came back. I have an issue with Jake leaving for New York to become an actor. In 1910, wouldn't he have gone into vaudeville or something? Was New York where people started an acting career in 1910?  And one thing, just personal, but if this guy is almost 100 years old, wouldn't you wait a couple more years before moving away and leaving him? Are you going to:

 A. Miss the last couple of years you might have with him. 

and B. Leave when he might need you the most? Suppose he needs help at his age? What are you, a monster?

  I thought it was going to be a time travel book of sorts. I thought that way into the book. Instead, it turned out to be a weird ghost story/magic sort of book. Why did Syd's family come back as ghosts at that particular time? Why didn't they just talk to her? What was the purpose any way? And didn't she think it might make her Great Gramps feel better to know what happened to his family? Why didn't she tell him they found out? One final thing, if you don't want to read the book, but you're wondering what happens to the dolls, the shop keeper says Mr. Stowe said to give them to Syd.

  That's it for this month's Doll Book of the Month Club. See you soon.