The Doll Book of the Month Club: Raggedy Ann's Mystery

   Sorry we seem to be heavy on Raggedy Ann recently. Right now I have to post whatever I have access to, and a few weeks ago I bought this book, Raggedy Ann's Mystery.

 It was, in fact, the same weekend I bought the boxed Raggedy Ann,  but not at the same sale.

  This book was published in 1962, so it's the same age as I am. I believe this edition is a reprint of a 1947 one. It's a story by Johnny Gruelle, the Raggedys originator, and not a later story by someone else. Gruelle didn't do the illustrations though. They are by Ethel Hays.

Now, before I get to the story of this...story, I have to say something. This story concerns a missing character, and the efforts to find him. What kills me is, the character, who has what looks sort of like dreadlocks, is called...wait for it! Snoopwiggie!

Is it just me, or is that funny?! Ken barely gave me a smirk, but Emma got a good laugh out of it. I just keep thinking of the name and the coincidence and giggling to myself. I mean, I suppose Snoopwiggie just has what Emma, (or was that Ivy?), used to call 'boingy curls', but come on! It's especially funny when you hear that Snoop Dogg is going bald, and is considering just being bald and wearing wigs all the time. Then he really will be Snoopwiggie! I kill me!

  Anyway, on to the book. The 'mystery' is that Snoopwiggie, (HA!) is missing, after inviting everyone to his birthday party. A guy called The Nice Fat Policeman, (must be the doughnuts...), wakes Raggedy Andy up in the middle of the night because of the missing...guy. 

Did this guy invite everybody to a middle of the night birthday party? Why is TNFP so worried and checking on him at night? Oh right: cake. So the Raggedy's get on the case, mainly because trying to think clogs up TNFP's brain. 

They come across Betsy Bonnet String. 

Apparently she's magic. She can twitch her apron and make things appear, like a birthday lunch for everyone, so they don't miss it. (The heck with Snoopwiggie. We don't need him and his birthday! We can have a birthday party without him! That's basically what Betsy says!) It's a lunch, in the middle of the night too. What's with that?

  Raggedy Ann notices that there are no footprints around Snoopwiggie's door, so 'someone must have carried him off'. Okay then. Where are their foot prints? She then guesses that the culprit who snatched Snoopwiggie, (Who said anyone snatched him? Maybe he went all 'wiggy' because he was having another birthday, and flew off on an age induced vacation.), MUST be the No Fun Elf, because of course it was. Sounds a bit...'elfist' to me.  She figures he used his magic cart. Maybe it doesn't leave tracks. Who knows?

  Raggedy Ann says that if they had red bicycles, because 'red ones go faster than any other kind', (Raggedy Ann seems to use the same logic as the Highway Patrol.), they could go to the No Fun Elf's house and find Snoopwiggie. 

  So Betty Bonnet String twitches her apron again, and two bikes with red wheels appear. They ride them to the No Fun Elf's house and find the door is locked.  Raggedy Ann says she knows Snoopwiggie is in there because she feels it in her candy heart But how do they get him out?

Wow. Raggedy Andy action hero. But isn't that a felony?

They decide to laugh, to aggravate the No Fun Elf so he will come out to try to drag them into his depressing house. Then Raggedy Andy can run in and get Snoopwiggie. It works, but the No Fun Elf notices and winks his eye, closing and locking the door, with Andy and Snoopwiggie inside!

  They struggle with how to get them out. Why can't Betsy wiggle her apron again? That's my question.  Then Raggedy Ann suddenly remembers that anyone with a candy heart that says 'I love you' can make one wish for someone on their birthday. So she wishes them out and the door springs open. (Why couldn't she have just wished for Snoopwiggie in the first place? 

  Raggedy Andy is carrying a black heart. It belongs to the No Fun Elf, and Andy found it in the house. So they wash it in the Laughing Brook, and the No Fun Elf gets nice.  

They all ride off to Snoopwiggie's, (HAHAHAHA!!!), for the party, including the now Fun Elf, and everybody has a happy ending.

Cake for everyone! Where's TNFP?

  Sorry for the lack of seriousness in this review. It was late and...Snoopwiggie! Ha!

Doll-A-Day 2023 #152: Raggedy Ann Limited Edition

   Today's doll is one I found yard saling today. (I had a purpose. This wasn't it, but I couldn't resist.) She's a special Raggedy Ann. Here's her box.

The pictures wrap around the sides.

And here is the girl herself.

She was made in 1994. What's special about her is that she's a reproduction of Raggedy Ann as she really looked in Johnny Gruelle's illustrations. That's what it says on the back of her box.

And as it says on her certificate of authenticity, she is number 6468 of a 'limited edition' of 10,000. I'm not sure I'd call that limited.

As I said, she's supposed to be a recreation of the original illustrations. But as usual, they didn't get things quite right. Just looking at her here, compared to the picture on the box, her face isn't round enough, her eyes aren't big enough, her apron, or pinafore, isn't ruffly enough, or high enough on her chest, and her smile isn't broad enough.

She was one of three dolls in the series, the other two including Andy and The Camel with the Wrinkled Knees. The dolls were made by Applause, so she has a plasic hand shaped Applause tag, and a card hang tag.

But in spite of her inaccurate looks, I love her anyway. I have always loved Raggedy Ann and Andy. How can you not love them? Look at her!

 

She has the traditional look of a Raggedy Ann, with her dress and pinafore.

Her pinafore is separate from her flowered dress.

And as always, she wears her long bloomers and her striped stockings and black shoes.

She has yarn hair, done in a slightly differetn style than the usual Ragedy Ann dolls. It's loose in the back...

...and twisted on top. 

She has quite long hair for a Raggedy Ann.

And the other thing that makes her very special, is that she is signed by Kim Gruelle, grandson of Johnny Gruelle, Ann's creator.

I bought this Ann from a lady who was a serious Raggedy collector. Her sale was filled with Raggedy Anns, Andy's, and a Beloved Belindy and Camel with the Wrinkled Knees or two. She had decided 'it was time' to get rid of her Raggedys. 

I took loads of pictures of all her Raggedy dolls and other items. But something happened, and my phone seems to have captured only two!

  She had all sorts of Raggedys, including a couple of African American ones, and a sheet set, a hand puppet, and a set of Ann and Andy with a little miniature Ann. But I was good and only bought this one doll.

 

She's smaller than my childhood Ann.

  That's today's doll. See you tomorrow with another great find I made today. 

Doll-A-Day 2023 #88: Raggedy Ann and Andy

   Today's dolls are both repeats, and not. I showed you my childhood Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls a while back. (You can also read the history of Raggedy Ann and Andy there.)These dolls are the same era, but these dolls haven't  been loved as mine have. They're still new.

  They're still in their original boxes. And remember, I said these were the same era as my childhood dolls. And I'm 61 years old!

  I can tell these are the same as my dolls, (except my Ann is musical, and this one isn't. This is the Ann I wanted, when I got the musical one because she was the only one we could find.), because I still have my Ann's tag, (just like this one), and because Ann's dress changed fabrics over the years and the changes of manufacturer. This one's dress has the same fabric as mine. These dolls are by Knickerbocker, just like mine.

  Check out the J.C. Penney price sticker on Andy's box. He was originally $4.49! He was then marked down to $3.88, and finally to $2.25. Poor guy! I wonder of the reason they are still in their boxes is because somebody ended up buying them as potential gifts, since they were so cheap, and just never gave them to anybody. Andy's box is faded and Ann's isn't, so maybe they weren't purchased together, but I like to think they've been together all these years.

    Look how beautiful and new they are.

.

Ann still has her handkerchief in her apron pocket. 

 Not like mine!

   They both have their tags, of course.

Just like my Ann's tag. The date is 1971. I would have been nine years old, so Knickerbocker must have stuck with this style of tag and clothes for a while. I got my Andy earlier, but I think I got my Ann for my eighth birthday. 

  They both have a cardboard wedge between their legs which keeps them upright in their boxes, and not slumping. Hey! Why haven't their feet had blowouts like my dolls' feet?!

    Look at little Andy. He's so cute. Don't tell Ann, but he was always my favourite.

 Their boxes bill them as  'America's folk dolls'. It's very sad they have fallen out of favour and aren't popular any more. I guess everything has it's day. I just think the stuff that's popular today is cold and unloving. How cozy can a kid get with a Monster High doll? (Okay, even they aren't the 'in' things any more. But you know what I mean.)

   I can't even remember where I got these dolls now. I was thinking a yard sale, but it would almost have to have been an auction. What is the likelihood of finding boxed dolls like this at a yard sale?

  Those are today's dolls.  See you again tomorrow for another one.

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.