Happy New Year all! I hope everybody enjoyed the last Doll-A-Day for 2019. This year I'm not doing a doll every day. That frees me up to talk, and show you, about a lot of other things. Today we're starting a series I am calling the 'Doll Book of the Month Club'. Once a month we'll see a book that may be about dolls,or have dolls as characters. This will include doll reference books,children's books about doll characters,and maybe some other types of books. Let me know if you have any suggestions. We're starting the year with "The Doll's House" by Rumer Godden.
You may have seen my post on the book "The Story of Holly and Ivy",also by Rumer Godden. (A note here: I gave the wrong link to that post on my post about Ivy's 'Holly' doll. That has been corrected, or you can follow the link above.) Today's book is another by Rumer Godden. "The Dolls' House" was originally published in 1947.
The copy we own has illustrations by Tasha Tudor, which were first included in 1962. The book concerns the Plantagenets, a family of dolls who live in London with two little girls named Emily and Charlotte.
The oldest of the dolls is Tottie, a very old wooden doll who has been in the family for generations.
The dolls are happy, but uncomfortable in their shoe box home. When Tottie tells the others about the doll house,(or, as they say in Britain, the doll's house.),she once lived in when she was owned by Emily and Charlotte's great grandmother and great great aunt, the others long for a house of their own.
Tottie isn't sure the house still exists, but the girls find themselves suddenly the owners of Tottie's old house, when it's passed down to them after a death in the family.
The dolls are thrilled to have a house and things of their own. Life is good and the dolls feel secure.
But can that last long? There has to be a conflict in a book, after all.
The conflict here begins when the girls also inherit Tottie's old housemate. She's a beautiful but conceited and selfish doll named Marchpane, who still considers the doll's house and everything in it, to be hers.
That's where things start to get a bit scary and sad. In fact, the book has a very shocking and sad climax. When I read the book to Ivy when she was a kid, we both had to stop and sit sort of stunned when it happened. We found it very devastating! We still enjoyed the book, but it took us by surprise and we were in tears. According to Ivy, I'm in tears over every book, but even she cried at this one.
So, if you're reading the book to a child, be aware that it might be upsetting to them. Preread the ending,(It happens in chapter 20.), and make sure you think the child you're reading to can handle it.
You can watch parts of the BBC's stop motion animated series based on the book HERE,HERE,and HERE. (It doesn't hold a candle to the book though. There's irony in that statement. If you read the book you'll find out why.) Apparently Rumor Godden originally didn't want the book made into a TV show. She later warmed to the idea and actually had a hand in the making of the series.
That's the first Doll Book of the Month Club entry. I hope you liked it. See you soon!
