The Doll Book of the Month Club: The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein/Irma's Big Lie

   It's time I caught up a little bit here, and delivered last month's Doll Book of the Month Club entry. It's "The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein", also produced in a Scholastic version as "Irma's Big Lie". 

That's the version I have from when I was a kid. That's the version I read to my kids when they were little. For my refresh to my memory, since I was at Emma's, I used a second hand hardback copy I rescued from the books from the fire. Luckily it didn't suffer any damage, and is in really nice shape.

  Whichever title you want to use, I always liked this book. It's by Carol Ryrie Brink, who  I didn't even realize wrote the famous "Caddie Woodlawn", and another kid's book I read a couple of years ago, just because it looked like the kind of book I liked as a kid, "The Pink Motel". She published her first book in 1934. 'Irma' is one of the last books she wrote, published in 1972. 

The illustrations are by Trina Schart Hyman. Her work was used in a lot of kid's books when I was growing up, so her illustrations always give me a warm, familiar feeling. She illustrated about 150  children's books, and her art included black and white illustrations like the ones in 'Irma', as well as beautiful colour illustrations in editions of  "Snow White", "The Secret Garden", and  "A Christmas Carol".  

  "Irma's Big Lie" concerns a girl named Irma Baumlein. Irma has moved with her father, from her 'cozy' apartment in New York, to the huge Baumlein mansion in another town. 

Irma and her father, (Her mother is finishing painting a mural and is supposed to join them when she's finished.), now live with Irma's grouchy great uncle and deaf great aunt, as well as their two servants.

 Irma's father has come to help his uncle modernize the family department store, founded by Irma's grandfather. The Baumleins are big names in town, but Irma doesn't feel big. She feels lonely as the new kid in school, and in the big house, where her father doesn't have time to talk to her very much, as business and his uncle have been taking all his time.

  Irma makes a habit of trying to look disinterested. But one day, weeks after their move, one of the girls from school strikes up a conversation with Irma, and invites her to her house on the way home from school. She's  a very friendly girl, who explain she has a big family, with a baby, a dog, and a bunch of hamsters. After reeling off all that news she asks Irma, "What do you have?" She wasn't trying to brag, just explain her family. She very likely meant, did Irma have any siblings, or, a dog or cat. But Irma feels pressured to top her, and blurts out, "I have the biggest doll in the world.". Irma doesn't even like dolls, preferring chemistry sets. She has no idea why she said it, but she goes on with the pretense, explaining that the doll can wear her clothes, has hair the colour of ripe oranges, and eyes that are cerulean blue.

  After her lie, Irma feels terrible, and doesn't know why she said it. She wishes she could take it all back, but the lie spreads to all the kids at school. 

  Irma is asked to bring her doll for a fundraising exhibit at school. She can't let her class down, as the class who raises the most money wins a prize. Irma searches desperately for a doll that can pass for the biggest doll in the world. Her great aunt offers Irma her old doll, which is, she says, very large. Irma gets excited, but the dolls turns out to be old and somewhat big, but can no way pass for the biggest doll in the world, and definitely does not have hair the colour of ripe oranges or eyes that are cerulean blue. Irma takes her anyway, and bonds with her great aunt, who obviously loved her doll very much.

  Irma's father mentions that the new shipment of dolls is in at the store. Irma puts together all her money, including birthday money she's been saving, and would rather spend on a chemistry set, and goes off to her great uncle's store. Her search of the doll department is fruitless, but on her way out, Irma sees a mannequin that has been removed from the window, a mannequin the size of Irma, with hair the colour of ripe oranges and eyes that are cerulean blue...and she's standing right by the exit door. You can guess where this is going.

  Irma's experiences with the doll are funny and tense. Does she get it home undetected? Does she manage to get it to school undetected? What happens at the school exhibit? Does Irma's lie get exposed? I won't say. It's an enjoyable book though, with a satisfying, if unlikely ending.

  That's the book for January! I'll be back very soon with February's book, and maybe a doll or two.

  

The Doll Book of the Month Club: Henriette, The Story of a Doll

   This month's Doll Book of the Month Clun entry is Henriette, The Story of a Doll, by Tracy Friedman. The illustrations are by Verna Rosenberry.

  Henriette is a beautiful china doll from France. The book opens with Henriette in the warmth and comfort of her elderly owner's arms, in a cozy chair. 

When her owner, who was given Henriette when she was a child, opens a letter, out drops a gold locket. The locket belonged to the daughter of Henriette's owner. Henriette had been passed on to the daughter, but the daughter had moved away as an adult and left Henriette behind. 

The Civil War ensued, and after a time, the daughter, (and her husband), passed away, but not before having a child of her own. Henriette's owner had tried to find her granddaughter, Amanda, and finally the locket had been sent as proof that  Amanda had been located. She is in Atlanta, in an orphanage. Henriette's owner sadly decides that Amanda would be better off being adopted than coming to live with an old lady on a decaying plantation.

  When the owner leaves the room, Henriette knows what she must do. She was meant to be Amanda's doll, and she must get to Amanda before she is adopted and lost forever. And, a doll after my own heart, Henriette decides to take the locket back to Amanda too, as it should be with her. Henriette does something most dolls in books like this don't get to do: She communicates with her owner. She writes a note to her owner, telling her where she has gone, and promising she will try to bring Amanda back. She digs through her trunk of clothes and puts on a red velvet cloak and a straw bonnet, and sneaks out through the kitchen, and into the wide world. Luckily a load of cotton is about to be sent to Atlanta, and Henriette is just in time to hitch a ride.

  This book reminds me a bit of Hitty, or The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane , (Click on those titles to read my reviews), in that it tells of a doll's journey somewhere, and her adventures along the way.

 'Henriette' has neither the complexity of Hitty's story, nor the poetry of Edward Tulane's, but then, it's much shorter than either of those books.  'Henriette' is a short, 64 pages, and if you have patient children who can sit for somewhere between half an hour and an hour, (I didn't time my read, and I don't know how fast you read.), you could cover the book in a sitting. It's an entertaining book, although I wasn't quite satisfied altogether with the ending. It didn't really settle everything. It's almost like there should have been a sequel. And there was! The sequel is called, "The Orphan and the Doll". I think both books should have been combined into one satisfying story, but I guess there were a couple of years in between. I think I can still recommend 'Henriette'. 

The Doll Book of the Month Club: The Mystery of the Silent Friends

  First of all, here's an update on the leg situation. I pulled an Elephant Man last night, and decided to 'sleep like a normal person'. I laid on my right side. Big mistake. A few hours later my leg was hurting bad enough to distract me from sleep, so I had to switch. It's afternoon now, and I have been stretching my leg, pressing the spot on my leg that feels like a tensed muscle to try to relax it, and laying on my left side, but today that's just not working. I am still having leg pain even when I'm laying still, and now my lower back is hurting too from laying on my back trying to stretch out my leg. This leg is definitely a work in progress! 

  This month's Doll Book of the Month Club entry is one I am pretty sure I read as a kid. It is called "Mystery of the Silent Friends" and is by Robin Gottlieb. 

  As a kid I read A LOT, and I would read almost anything that had a title that began with  "Mystery of the". This book was originally published in 1964, and the copy I would have read, and the one we have now, is a Scholastic paper back. I found our copy at the library book sale when the kids were little, and I read it to them. I don't remember any of their reactions to it, but Ivy says she thinks she remembers it, and she liked it. And I like it!

  The story begins in Mr. Martin's antique shop, where his daughter Nina is playing with a pair of 200 year old automatons. (Automatons are mechanical figures that perform a specific action, or series of actions. Kind of like Horsman's 1970 doll Peggy Pen Pal, 1989's Susie Scribbles doll by Wonderama, or Mattel's 1970 drawing doll Sketchy.)  In this case, the figures are a boy, that writes, and a girl that draws pictures. Oddly, the girl draws four pictures of Swiss scenes, and one picture of a 'See no evil' monkey.) Nina's father has owned the automatons for years, and no one has ever been interested in them. That suits Nina, as she loves the automatons. 

She asks her father to never sell them, and he says that isn't very likely anyway, since nobody seems to want them. So of course the next thing that happens is that a man walks into the shop, asking about the automatons. (You know how these old books go!) He claims to be the son of the previous owner, and that he has the third doll in the series, and he wants to reunite them.

  The only thing is, the next day another man comes in, giving the same name: George Ballentine III!  (I had to laugh when one of the girls puts forth the idea that maybe the men are brothers, and the other says, "But who would have two sons and name them both George?" Uh, George Forman? Maybe he read this book.) But George the third the second offers to have them come to his house and see his doll. The father and daughter go, and are amazed by the guy's collection of automatons, which includes birds in cages, acrobats, jugglers, and the supposed 'third doll', who plays a spinet.

  Nina and her friend Muffin, a devotee of practical jokes, decide that the only thing to do is to ask the first man to show them his 'third doll'. This guy is kind of suspect anyway, since when he came in he was wearing a hat over his red hair, and seemed very upset when he bumped into some antlers in the shop and his hat was tipped. 

Nina tips one of the George's hat with a spear, to check his hair colour.

He also claims to be well off, but Nina, who was apparently born to be a detective, notices that he has a broken shoe lace that's been knotted back together. And it only gets more confusing. When the red haired man comes back to hear Mr. Martin's final word on selling the automatons, he now has brown hair, like the second man. And even more weird, he takes them to the exact same 5th Avenue Brownstone, and shows them the exact same doll playing a spinet. But he doesn't give them the full tour as the other man did, and whisks them out hurriedly after the doll plays her tune.

  Now what?! Mr. Martin has told both men he's not selling, as he wants to distance himself from the whole strange situation. But, of course, this is a 1960's kid's book, so Nina and Muffin, who have to know what the deal is with the two George's, do some detective work on their own, strolling unchaperoned around New York City and Central Park. 

  I won't tell you how the book ends and spoil the fun. And it is a fun book. Do kids these days like this kind of book? I don't know. If you're considering reading it to you own child, or grandchild, (or some random kid on the street. I don't know what you do...), you know them and what they'll like or put up with. As I said, Ivy liked it, but then Ivy was raised on the Scholastic kid's books of my childhood, and also has most of the tastes of an old person, so there you go.

  It's a short 154 pages, and an easy read. The illustrations are by Al Brule, and are fun pictures typical of the period. If anybody wants a copy of this book, I managed to get an extra copy recently, so let me know. I will ask you to pay shipping though. If you aren't into physical books, and you have an account with the Internet Archive, you can read the book HERE. 

  There is a sequel to this book, called "Secret of the Unicorn", which features Nina, but unfortunately not her more colourful friend Muffin. Muffin has been replaced by a girl named Polly. No word on Muffin's whereabouts... 

The Doll Book of the Month Club: The Best Loved Doll

   This month's Doll Book of the Month Club entry was a recent suggestion from our reader, RagingMoon1987. It's a book I read to my kids when they were little. This month's book is "The Best Loved Doll", by Rebecca Caudill.

  The book concerns a little girl named Betsy, who is invited to a party at her friend Susan's house. The invitation says each guest should bring a doll. At the party there will be prizes given for the Oldest Doll, the Best Dressed Doll, and the doll who can do the most things. Betsy debates which doll to take. She has a beautiful bride doll, in a gown that might win best dressed. She has a mechanical doll that can sew, who might win the prize for the doll who can do the most things. She even has her great grandmother's doll, who might win oldest doll. And then there is her doll, Jennifer. Jennifer is well loved and well worn. Her face is damaged, she has lost a shoe, and her dress is ragged. Betsy considers which doll to take, and ultimately decides to take Jennifer, knowing she won't win a prize. 

"You aren't my oldest doll, Jennifer," said Betsy. "Your dress is a fright. And you can't do a single thing. But I do love you, dear Jennifer."

  At the party all the girls have brought their dolls. The girls play games while the dolls watch from the couch. 

  The girls and the dolls enjoy cupcakes, and later, Susan's mother awards the prizes. 

  It's a surprise when she decides to award an extra prize to Jennifer, as, you guessed it, 'The Best Loved Doll'. It's a wonderful lesson about valuing love and friendship over appearances. 

  I remember reading this book to my daughter Emma, whose favourite doll was a very worn, bald doll, who was given all the best doll stuff Emma had, and who Emma took everywhere.    

Here she is getting off the plane after a 'trip' to Doll Paris.

  It's a sweet, old fashioned story. I might also add that not everyone at the party wins a prize, and they're all okay with that. Not like these days when everyone gets a prize, so no one feels left out or cheated. It used to annoy me senseless when my kids were little, and everyone always got a prize at school events. On 'Fun Day' there were games of chance, but there was no chance anybody was going to go home without a prize. It was supposed to be so that none of the kids got upset that somebody won and they didn't. I thought that taught a bad lesson. Nobody had to earn anything, and in life, sometimes you don't win. You aren't always going to win. Did those kids grow up expecting everything to be handed to them, whether they deserved it or not? I also thought it devalued the effort some kids put in. Why bother if even the kids who don't try or care win anyway? Sorry. Rant over.

  Apparently "The Best Loved Doll" was based on something that actually happened to Rebecca Caudill's own daughter.

  The book is illustrated with simple drawings by Elliot Gilbert, coloured only in a couple of colours. It might be bland to kids these days, when everything has to be neon and sparkly, but it's quietly and calmly beautiful. Gilbert wanted the illustrations to 'reflect the timelessness of the story', and while they may look a bit dated art-wise, I think they are perfect for the story, which is, itself a bit old fashioned these days. Not that that's a bad thing.

  The book was originally published in 1962, an excellent year, which also produced me. I think it's still in print, or, at least, was not many years ago. It is a thin book, of only 64 pages, and is recommended for ages 5 to 8, grades Kindergarten through third grade. It's also recommended by me.

  That's it for this month's book. My shoulder has kept me from typing much lately, but hang in there. I'm still around, with more to show you.

Cozy Winter Reads: Magic Elizabeth by Norma Kassirer

    First of all I have to welcome our two newest followers,sara scales and Allenoel. I get an error page when I click on you sara. Any suggestions? Allenoel has three blogs you can check out,including For The Love Of Dolls  Thanks for joining us guys.
  If you live where the weather has been hitting you the way it has here, you're having plenty of extra time with your kids, as they celebrate some welcome snow days. When it's cold outside it's so nice to be cozy and warm inside, snuggled down with the kids and a good book. When my kids were little they all loved "Magic Elizabeth", by Norma Kassirer,another of my childhood favourites.

  "Magic Elizabeth" was a book I checked out of the school library several times when I was  a kid, before I managed to buy a copy of my own from the book orders they hand out at school. It was another of those classic Scholastic paper backs.  The book was originally published in 1966, but I know it has been reprinted as recently as 1999,(with a different cover from mine.).
The book opens on a rainy night,when Sally finds herself suddenly dropped off with an aunt she hasn't seen since she was a baby and remembers nothing about.

Sally's parents are away, and the lady looking after her has to leave to help her sick daughter. Sally is scared in her aunt's strange, old fashioned house, but she finds a friend in the house next door, and little by little, in Aunt Sarah.

Sally also finds herself caught up in a mystery. In the room she is staying hangs a painting of a little girl with a doll on her lap. Aunt Sarah tells Sally the portrait is of a little girl, also named Sally, who used to live in the house, and the girl's favourite doll, Elizabeth.Sally falls instantly in love with Elizabeth, and is saddened to learn that Elizabeth mysteriously disappeared from the top of the Christmas tree one Christmas Eve long ago. She has to still be in the house somewhere! Sally makes it her mission to find Elizabeth. Soon she must return home, and her aunt plans to sell the house.Elizabeth will be lost forever!
  The best parts of the book involve Sally 'becoming'  the other Sally and reliving moments from her life: does she really time travel, or was she dreaming?

 It's also fun following the clues with Sally as she tries to figure out what happened to Elizabeth.
  The illustrations will look familiar to readers of Mary Norton's Borrowers books,(More of my favourite kid's books.).They're by Joe Crush who,along with his wife Beth also illustrated that series.(An interesting note: He was also a courtroom sketch artist at the Nuremberg trials.)
 My kids always tease me about the fact that so many of the books I loved as a kid had to do with somebody having to 'save the house'. While Aunt Sarah isn't about to loose the house, the kids say her selling the house and Sally's race to find Elizabeth before she does counts as 'saving the house'!
  I would say this book would be entertaining to kids as young as kindergarten age, and as old as 10.There are a couple of copies of Magic Elizabeth on Ebay as I right this, but they are massively expensive, especially since I see from the 'sold' page that the paperback usually sells for normal prices. There is also the more recent edition, so you should be able to find a very affordable copy.(Try Amazon.) 

Our Soggy Camping Trip and 2014 Summer Reading Assignment #2: Ginnie and the Mystery Doll by Catherine Woolley

    Well, we're back from our mini vacation. We got the van fixed just in time to have a couple of days before Ivy goes back to school in about a week.Unfortunately, it rained...sorry: POURED...most of the time we were there. Ken looks forward to cooking out more than just about anything else, so he was literally not a 'happy camper'. Here's what the view looked like from inside our snugly warm camper van: (Just a bit too warm for Ken. But then, everything is.)

The view out of the back door. I got yelled at: Close the door you're getting the bed wet!

 It had rained the night we got there, and the next day Ken spent ages drying out the wood by burning lighter fuel on it. (I'm not sure that works, but that's his idea.) He finally got it fairly dry and thought it would light and make a fire big enough to cook on. And then it REALLY began to rain.

Just to let you see just how submerged it became:

 He did finally get to cook out though. To prove it he had to take a picture of his fire.

We went through a small town we've stopped at a few times, but I never noticed this before:

Oh. A park. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But here's the whole picture...

 Nothing out of the ordinary there, and no park there either! That's the whole park?! But it wasn't...there is a picnic bench behind that tree. A fun day out for the whole family at the Paul and Ruth Bird Memorial Park.

It's nice to travel, and nice to spend concentrated time with Ken and Ivy, but I'll be glad to sleep in my own bed. The bed in the camper is not the most comfortable thing in the world by any stretch of the imagination. I'll be back to Doll-A-Day tomorrow with a review. But for today I'm going to share another book for you to enjoy with your kids.
   This summer's theme seems to be doll books, (That's fitting for a doll collecting blog anyway, right?) For our second 'summer reading assignment' of this year I'm suggesting "Ginnie and the Mystery Doll" by Catherine Woolley.

She's not holding a ball of light. I couldn't stop the glare from the flash.

  

This is another of the books I read as a kid that I checked out more than once from the school library. I never managed to get a copy as a kid though, and when I found this one at the library book sale here in town  I jumped on it so I could read it to the kids. (Ok, and so I could read it again myself!) It's a Scholastic paperback just like the one I got from the school library.

  The book is set in the summer, of course, and Ginnie and her best friend Geneva, and both their families, have rented a house on Cape Cod for the summer. The book was written in 1960, which accounts for how an average family, (or even a couple of them),could afford to rent a house on Cape Cod for a whole summer! Ginnie and Geneva are looking forward to swimming and having fun, but when they go next door to meet their summer neighbor they become involved in a mystery. The neighbor, Miss Wade, lets the girls play dress up in her attic on a rainy day and the girls discover an old diary. The diary belonged to Miss Wade's mother when she was a child, and mentions Lady Vanderbilt, a beautiful doll brought to the little girl from Paris by a sea captain uncle, and the 'valuable jewel' she wore.

The illustrations are nothing to write home about though.

 

  Miss Wade explains that the doll disappeared one summer when she rented the house to a family from California. The girls despair over the long lost doll. One day, at an auction in the village the girls find what they are sure is the missing Lady Vanderbilt, but they haven't enough money to win her, and the doll disappears once again, in the red sports car of her new owner.
  The girls try to track Lady Vanderbilt down, while also enjoying Cape Cod. I always loved the descriptions of the beach, and the girl's experiences picking 'beach plums' to make jelly, and digging for clams. My kids always tease me that so many of my favourite books from my childhood involve somebody needing to save a house. In this book the house doesn't quite need saved, but Miss Wade needs to make some house repairs she just doesn't have the money for, and the return of Lady Vanderbilt and her 'valuable jewel' are just what she needs.

  The book is full of near misses and mystery. (Just where has Lady V been all these years, and where did she come from all of a sudden?) The descriptions of the girls' summer make you smell the sea air and feel the sand beneath your feet. This is the book that made me want to spend a summer in a cottage on Cape Cod, and I still want to do that someday!
  Catherine Woolley wrote 87 books, including a whole series of Ginnie Fellows books, (not all of which were mysteries.). In fact, she wrote so many books that her publisher suggested she use a pen name for some of them. She used her grandmother's name, Jane Thayer, on her books for younger children. She wrote well into her 90's. She died in 2005, at the age of 100.
  The age recommendation for the Ginnie books is 7 to 12+, but judge for yourself if your slightly younger child would be interested. There are  a few copies of Ginnie and the Mystery Doll on Ebay right now and the prices vary greatly. It still seems the book can be had for only $5 though, which is pretty good. The Ginnie books are available in a 10 book set that includes: Ginnie and Geneva; Ginnie Joins In; Ginnie and the New Girl; Ginnie and the Mystery House; Ginnie and the Mystery Doll; Ginnie and Her Juniors; Ginnie and the Cooking Contest; Ginnie and the Wedding Bells; Ginnie and the Mystery Cat; Ginnie and the Mystery Light.You could check Amazon.I'm not sure if it's currently in print, but you could check an actual book store. They're always happy to order books for you.

2014 Summer Reading Assignment No. 1: Merry, Rose, and Christmas Tree June by Doris Orgel

  If any of you have been reading the blog long enough you will remember that last summer I reviewed some books to read with your kids. I have been very remiss so far this summer, as it is JULY already and I haven't suggested a single book. For those of you who have been waiting with bated breath, (or is it baited breath? And just how do you bait breath anyway?) , I am finally getting  around to my Summer Reading Assignments.
  In summer I like to review books that are set during summer. It's not a rule, but I think it works pretty well. Today I'm suggesting a book that is set during summer, the month of June in fact. I was going to post a review in June so it would all fit, but, as frequently happens, things got away from me. The book is Merry, Rose, and Christmas Tree June, by Doris Orgel. The illustrations are by Edward Gorey, who some of you may remember as the artist behind the creepy animation at the beginning of PBS's "Mystery" series.

This one is in worse condition than just about any of my childhood books. I was pretty anal as a kid, and most of my books look like they were never read. I don't know how this one got this way, except that it's 44 years old. (Of course, I have older books that don't look like this...)

  The story concerns a little girl named Jane. Jane has two dolls named Merry and Rose,whom she loves to care for. She feeds them, takes them on outings, and cares for them as any good doll mother should. One day Jane's Great Aunt Beulah shows up suddenly. She wants to take Jane home with her and show her off at a dinner party. Jane is swept out the door so fast that Jane hasn't a chance to grab Merry and Rose, and so she must face a long, lonely weekend without them. She's so upset that Great Aunt Beulah finally consents to take Jane shopping for a new doll just to get her to stop crying. Jane is still sad, but brightened by the possibility of a new doll. (This book was written in 1969, back in the days when a kid only had a few dolls. Not like now when kids have so many dolls they don't 'bond' with them.) Unfortunately for Jane, Great Aunt Beulah has nothing on her mind but her dinner party, and she has no intention of taking Jane shopping until it's all over.
  Running parallel to Jane's story is the story of a lonely, forgotten doll sitting on a back shelf of the doll shop in the town where Aunt Beulah lives: a plain doll who can do nothing fancy and doesn't use batteries or have a pull string like the currant occupants of the store that the owner is so proud of. Obviously Jane and the doll are destined to get together, but the story is written with those near misses that make those kinds of stories so tortuously good.
  Some of the best parts of the book are the descriptions of what really goes on in a toy store at night. (The dolls all come out of their boxes and play 'home': "...this time of night when they could move around and talk and play and do anything they wanted".

The dolls visit 'the zoo', otherwise known as the toy animal department.

 "One doll was feeding another doll midnight breakfast: bits of air from a little plate and sips of air from a little cup. For air is food and drink to dolls, and they live on it very well.")

  When Great Aunt Beulah finally does take Jane to the toy shop Jane meets several dolls that amaze her at first, but then inevitably leave her disappointed.

Every doll in the store seems to have a special talent, like growing hair, crying,dancing, or walking.

The dolls, Hairiette,Willie Walkie,Bella Ballerina,Lotta Tears,Tillie Talkie,and Mehittable, are all pretty horrible, and what happens, or what Jane fears will happen, to some of them, (accidentally of course.), may leave some very small kids a bit upset, or at least creeped out. (The illustrations by Gorey may add a little to the 'creeped out' aspect of things!) But of course everything turns out happily for Jane in the end. It's a very sweet story and has a warm cozy feel to it. It was one of my favourite books as a kid, and my kids liked it too.

 

Be forewarned: This next picture is the last page of the book, and as such is a spoiler!

  It's a fairly short book, with only 78 pages. It's written in an easy to read style with a few larger words and uncommon names, (like Great Aunt Beulah!), but should be ok for kids 7 or 8 and up. If you are reading it to your child, judge for yourself how they might react to the story, but if you think they'll be ok with the scene I mentioned, younger than 7 would enjoy it. My book's copy write is 1970, which means I was 8 years old when I got it, and I survived quite well.
  The author, Doris Orgel, is still around, and is now 85 years old. Born in Austria in 1929, Orgel and her family, being Jewish, had to leave Nazi controlled Austria in a story that would make quite a book in itself. After leaving Austria her family lived in Yugoslavia, London, the English countryside, and New York. Orgel has written 65 books, including books for readers somewhat older than those of "Merry, Rose, and Christmas Tree June". She has also translated quite a few books written by others. She is still considered a children's author, and she lives in New York. Illustrator Edward Gorey illustrated his own books as well as others, and designed the sets for the very successful 1970's Broadway production of "Dracula".

"Dracula", featuring the set design of Edward Gorey.

There was even a Toy Theatre version sold in book form. He died in 2000.
  I'm not sure if Merry, Rose, and Christmas Tree June is still in print. It can, of course, be obtained online from Amazon, or auction sites. The average low price seems to be between 15 and 20 dollars. For those who love doll stories it's highly recommended...by me anyway!

December Doll Reads: Miss Hickory, and Happy Christmas Wishes!

  We're well into December and I've only reviewed one book! I'm not keeping up with all my promises.But Emma, I am reading The Great Gatsby right now! (Well, not this second, obviously.)
  This post is dedicated to "Miss Hickory" by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey, another of my favourite books from my childhood.

  Miss Hickory was originally published in 1946 and won the Newbery Medal for children's literature the following year. The story concerns Miss Hickory, a doll made from an apple wood twig, with a hickory nut for a head,and what happens when her human family goes away for the winter and leaves her behind--outside, no less. Miss Hickory is used to living under the lilac bush in the summer, and having her neat little corn cob house moved inside every year, to winter on the kitchen window sill.

Before it all begins,Miss Hickory fastidiously cleans her corn cob house.

She now has to face a hard winter, with nowhere to live once her house is taken over by chipmunks, and danger everywhere. Even her 'friend' the squirrel takes an uncomfortable interest in her hickory nut head.

Squirrel surprises Miss Hickory in her bird nest home.

  Miss Hickory was cranky, and stubborn, and obsessively orderly before all this happened to her, but she finds she can't control every little detail out in the big, wide world. She must clothe herself with what is available,live where she can, and cope with the animals around her.Her stubborness causes her to miss the miracle in the barn on Christmas eve, which all the animals line up to see.Squirrel describes it this way: 
 "In the barn," he told her, "Something wonderful happens there every Christmas Eve at midnight...Only we animals and the winged creatures see it.Large and small, wild and tame,of the Earth or with God, we all go over to the barn to watch for it, and no one is afraid of those larger than himself."

Animals from all over the world somehow appear to view the miracle on Christmas Eve.

  In the end,her constant lecturing to others is her undoing in a way. I won't spoil the end by telling you what happens. It's another tear jerker, and yet happy in  a way. (I tend to recommend a lot of books like that. What was the matter with me when I was a kid?! Maybe it was both cause and effect of reading all these books!)
  The illustrations, lithographs by Ruth Gannett,are beautiful. The shading gives them so much mood, and the detail is wonderful.They're the perfect match for the story.

One of the most beautiful pictures in the book. Miss Hickory on Christmas eve.

  I always loved the descriptions of what Miss Hickory made her various outfits out of:
"The woods were full of lovely stuffs for her sewing.Velvety leaves not yet dried and colored rose,gold,scarlet,and russet. Soft beautiful mosses of many different kinds:furry ones, that grew close to the ground;trailing ones;upstanding feathery ones like plumes.And each moss was green and everlasting.The tiny brown cones of the larch trees made excellent buttons."

Miss Hickory sews her winter clothes: a coat of moss, and a skirt of leaves.

  When I was in elementary school I did a book report on Miss Hickory, and I still have the project I did to go with my report.

Thinking about it, I guess my Miss Hickory qualifies as the first doll I ever made.(Please keep in mind this was elementary school!)

  We had an apple tree at the bottom of our back yard, and since I was as addicted to realism and detail then as I am now, I'm sure I used an apple twig for her body.(It was tough finding one with 'arms', and 'legs', and the appropriate 'fingers' and 'feet'.)

Her head is a hickory nut.

I have no idea now how I got the nut to stick to the twig body, but it has stayed attached for around 40 years, so whatever it was, I made a good choice. I think it must have been Elmers glue, since that's what we always had around. I seem to remember trying to sew real moss into a coat and having it fall apart on me. In the end I resorted to an old wash cloth, coloured green with a marker.Her skirt is real leaves though.

  I read Miss Hickory to my kids. They did like it, but I'm not sure they were very happy with the ending! The end might be a little upsetting for very young children.Pre-read it and judge for yourself, because no one knows your children as well as you do.Amazon recommends an age range of 7 to 12 for this book, and a grade level of 2 to 7, although I'm not sure you'll find many 7th graders reading this type of book.) The book may still be in print, but in any case, it's not hard to find a copy, and it's not usually expensive.
   Cuddle up Christmas eve and read a nice book with your kids.We read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol every Christmas eve, but I always end up being the only one still awake long before the end.
  I won't be here again until after Christmas, so I will wish everyone a very happy Christmas!