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.

  

  

 

The Doll Book of the Month Club: Tammy, Adventure in Squaw Valley

   Talk about coming down to the wire! Our internet was off since Friday night, and only just got back on today. Just in time for the Doll Book of the Month Club entry for August. This post could have been better, but I finished the book last Friday, and was going to write the post that night before I forgot what I wanted to say. Thanks Frontier!)

  I seem to be finding a lot of Tammy stuff lately. (Not my stuff. It's all 'Tammy' stuff, and believe me, there's probably way too much of it.) I mean Ideal's Tammy. I've been finding things like the doll, and things associated with her. One of those things is this book, which I got at an antique mall during a recent Fun Day outing.

  "Tammy, Adventure in Squaw Valley" is one of those Whitman hardbacks from the 60's, and it resembles the Robin Kane or Donna Parker books in more ways than one. 

The writing is pretty par for the course, and so are the illustrations. 

That's not to say that that's a bad thing. I enjoyed those books as a kid. I can see where kids of the era probably enjoyed this Tammy book. 

And having said that, I do have to say that it's not perfect. The entire first chapter is character exposition. We learn all about how great Tammy is, what an annoying little sister Pepper is, how much Tammy's brother Ted is an all around great student and typically superior acting big brother. 

Tammy comes home to find that Mother has a secret.

  The 'Adventure' is mostly what happens to Tammy and Ted at the ski resort in Squaw Valley, which they are staying at for a family wedding. I don't think that's what the title is referring to, but it takes most of the book, with only a couple of only slightly out of the ordinary happenings in the meantime, to get to the actual adventure.  

  Tammy is described as being 16 years old. She plays baseball at school, and likes archery and tennis. Tammy, in her doll form, had an archery set, and a tennis set. This book contains a lot of Tammy trying to ski, and the doll also had a ski set, complete with skis and a skiing outfit that completely matches the ski outfit Tammy buys for the trip in the book. I am wondering how much the book was seen as a commercial for the doll and her clothing sets.

  If you collect Tammy dolls, the book is a nice addition to your collection. Not only that, but the book can sort of make the doll 'come alive' for you, since she's given a personality. Tammy is sensible, stubborn, and feisty. (Why thank you. Yes I am!) You even get to know her family and what they were supposed to be like.  As I said, the 'adventure' took a while showing up, and it was sort of like 'Lionel Twain' described some of the mystery writers' books in "Murder by Death", in that they made it impossible to solve the mystery, by leaving out clues, and introducing characters in the last five pages that were never in the book before. But the book was a nice leisurely 'adventure' anyway, and then got exciting at the end.

  If the illustrations look familiar to you, it may be because illustrator Haris Petie  was responsible for the illustrations in many books, including some mysteries featuring Trixie Belden, another heroine included in the 60's Whitman line up. Author Winifred E. Wise seems best known for another Whitman book about a teenaged girl, "Minnow" Vail.

  That's the book for the month. See you again soon!