Latest Store Nab, and a Request For Help

   There's some serious stuff here, so please read to the end of the post.

  Ken and I ventured out yesterday. Remember a while back I mentioned getting the Mini Brands display box from Target? The one that has the actual Mini Brands stuck on the front? Well guess what Target had yesterday?!

This is the latest Mini Brands display box, and...

...the latest Real Littles display box! 

  The great thing about these is, when they are empty, they throw them away, so they don' think anything about giving them to you. The bad thing, if you can find anything bad in getting free stuff, is, you can only get these particular ones free. They same ones are displayed on every box. As for Mini Brands, they are still making things in various scales. 

The feta cheese is Barbie sized/1/6 scale/playscale.

By the way, Made to Move's hair has gotten nasty greasy! What's up with that?!

 

The Jello and cinnamon are more American Girl/18 inch doll sized though.

Here's a better view of the cinnamon.

The Real Littles aren't as realistic as the Mini Brands. 

For one thing, the cereal box is short and squat. Family size box for playscale dolls?

And it took me a minute to figure out what the other thing is. A sandwich bag of Fruit Loops, I think. 

   As I said, Ken and I ventured out yesterday, and I'll be talking more about that in an upcoming post. Today I wanted to tell you a little story, so sit down. I'm going to get serious.

  I have a confession first. I like to watch dumpster diving videos. For those of you who don't know what those are, they are YouTube videos by people who pick stuff out of dumpsters. Hey, one man's trash is another man's treasure...and somebody's video. People, and businesses, are very wasteful. They throw away so much useable stuff. I was raised by parents who grew up during the depression. My dad was always the 'I can buy another one' type. His family had had a little more money during the depression because his dad drew a pension. My mom though, was the 'don't waste anything' type. She got that from my grama, who saved everything in case she needed to use it or make something from it. So I learned not to waste what I have. Or what somebody else might have either. ("Don't throw that away! Somebody could use that!")

  In any case, I enjoy Dumpster Diving videos, as long as I can stand the people doing them. One of my favourites on YouTube is Freakin Frugal. They dumpster dive mostly food from grocery store dumpsters, so that could get boring sometimes. But their videos are entertaining for the personalities of the couple who do the diving. I especially enjoy 'Frugal Mommy'. She has a great sense of humour and she's just goofy enough to strike me as somebody I could be friends with. And I don't say that about many people. I have often said to Ken while watching one of their videos, "I could hang out with her." (She's even Vegan, to my Vegetarian, so we could even eat together!) I've also said to Ken that he's very like 'Frugal Daddy', who is always eating something,(He's a meat eater, like Ken.), sometimes in large quantities, just like Ken! They also seem to be good people. They don't often mention it, and usually only if somebody asks, "What do you do with so much food? You can't possibly use it all.", but they donate a lot of what they get to homeless shelters, 'little food pantry' type spots, homeless people on the street, and friends and neighbors. Often they will also mention that clothes they find 'diving' will be added to their donations to the Vietnam Vets organization, and  toiletry things to the homeless shelters.

  Recently there was a long gap in their video posting. I began to worry that maybe they had Covid-19. They have two little girls, (in spite of being only a couple of years younger than I am, which is 58.) I worried somebody was sick. Yesterday 'Frugal Daddy' posted a video where he explained what had happened. 'Frugal Mommy', whose real name is Amy, had recently been warming herself, with her back to the fireplace, while wearing an almost floor length skirt. Her skirt had caught fire, without her noticing. By the time she noticed, her skirt was ablaze, and started her polyester leggings burning as well. If you're interested in the details of what occured, you can watch the video where Frugal Daddy explains. To make the story short, in spite of the efforts of Amy and Duane, ('Frugal Daddy'), the clothes couldn't be extinguished, and before they could be removed Amy suffered second and third degree burns on most of her lower body. She was in the ICU burn unit of the hospital for 10 days. She had to have skin grafts. Duane is retired, and Amy retired from her job as a social worker a while back to be an at home mom to, their twin girls, (who are now 8 or 9 years old), while they were still young. Consequently, Amy has no insurance. The hospital bills have now surpassed $300,000. It has been recommended that Amy have occupational and physical therapy, which they are turning down because they can't afford it. They have, however, set up a Go Fund Me page to ask for help with the hospital bills only. If any of you feel you would like to help, please go to the Go Fund Me page using the link above, and make a donation.

More Lame Excuses, and Elastigirl

   I know you haven't heard much from me lately, but it really is a pain having to use someone else's computer. Apart from having to use it at it's owner's convenience, Ken's computer is so slow, and pretty grungy. Now I'm having problems with my camera too. I don't know if it's the camera, or the memory card, but I'll take pictures, and even see them on the camera, and when I try to take them off the card and put them on the computer to use, they just aren't there. It's been really frustrating. I lost a whole load of unboxing pictures for my upcoming review. You can't redo those. I've had to take the pictures for this post three times! The unboxing ones disappeared. I have also been using my time repairing things for Ken and the kids, like clothes, and shopping bags, and Emma's purse. I have been finishing some miniature Tiffany lamps I started ages ago. I've been working on something else I'll be showing you in an upcoming post. It's Ken's 'birthday month', so he's had me out eating somewhere several times lately. We've been to Emma's a couple of times, and whenever she's not working on school work, we've been hanging out with Ivy. She goes back to college on Sunday, and I am going to miss her terribly.

  Now, finally, here it is: the post none of you asked for!

  I did show you the "Incredibles 2" Elastigirl doll I got for Christmas from my sister. But today you're going to hear what I like and don't like about her.

  First, the 'likes'. She has a beautiful glowy, realistic 'skin'. 

The vinyl her face is made of really is nice. She is also a fairly accurate sculpt of the character as she appears in the movies.  Her hair  is a nice realistic blend of colours and shades. 

It's not very fluffy, because, like most dolls these days, it's full of gunk to make sure it doesn't move. I'm fairly sure that could be washed out and her hair would fluff up.

  Her outfit is pretty movie accurate, except for the shininess.

The red outfit wasn't shiny. The gray outfit she got later in the second movie, ("The Incredibles 2".), was shiny. There is also a doll like this one that came in the gray outfit.

  And my last 'like': she's posable. Oddly enough, that's also one of my dislikes. I love that they made her posable. According to the box, she is 'fully posable for incredible action'. 

('Incredible' action. Get it?)

The problem is, not so much. Oh, she's quite posable. Don't get me wrong. She's jointed at the neck, shoulders, elbows, wrist, hips, and knees. She can do lots of cool poses.

...And also this one.

When you get tired of all that superhero stuff.

  The disappointment comes when you realize she's not as posable as she could be.  The problem doesn't seem to fully be her jointing, (although I would have liked to have seen an ankle joint, and a waist joint.). The problem seems to be that her suit is too stiff. She can do some poses, and not hold them, because the suit forces things out. What's the point of making an amazingly jointed doll, and putting it in a suit that limits their posability?

  Another thing I have an issue with is her mask. It's a nice little mask, and they tried to make it movie accurate by not having a strap or anything to hold it on.  The problem is, they make it stay on her face by making the back sticky.

  The front is firm plastic, and the back is soft spongy stuff covered in sticky stuff. The whole mask is way too thick for realism, but the worst part is the sticky stuff. It doesn't stay stuck! The mask doesn't conform to the shape of her face very well, so you can't get a good stick. The mask drops off in a second.

Kids are definitely going to lose this mask.

  Other than those things, she has a removable outfit, with Velcro down the back. The thing is, you can't actually remove it because the sleeves won't fit over her hands. Her shoes come off and you might be able to get the feet through the clothes, but no way are those hands going through. I thought maybe the hands might be removable, like Monster High dolls. But no.

  Overall she's a nice doll. Kids probably won't have as much of an issue with the posability as I did.

  Next time we'll have a look at what I've been keeping my hands busy with while just watching TV with Ivy.

 

The Doll Book of the Month Club: The Little Wooden Doll

 Here it is the end of the month already. Ivy will be starting classes again tomorrow, and going back to college the next week. I have been spending as much time as I can with her before she leaves  home again. It makes me nervous that she is going back too, with the virus still ongoing. 

  While Ivy is elsewhere, it's time for  this month's Doll Book of the Month Club entry.  This month we're looking at The Little Wooden Doll, by Margery Williams Bianco.

The book can be expensive, but I found this discarded library edition from the 1940's for a really cheap price online. 

  Originally published in 1925, The Little Wooden Doll tells the story of, well... a little wooden doll. 

She's been relegated to the attic, where she has spent many lonely years. Her friends are the mice, and  the old spider. She's invited to the mice parties, but there's always the underlying loneliness in her heart.

 "On summer days, when the sun shone, a beam of light came through the attic window. Golden dust motes danced in the beam, and it was beautiful to see. Sometimes, then, a bumblebee would blunder in, or a great, spotted butterfly, or sometimes a swallow would perch at the open window, and all these had news to bring of the outside world: of the cornfields and the flowers and the blue sky. And sometimes, at night, when the moonlight lay on the attic floor, the mice would give parties, and to these the little wooden doll was always invited. "

  She barely remembers being loved by a child, but she feels the empty spot where a child should be in her life.

 "On the whole the little wooden doll had a pleasant life. Only sometimes, toward dusk, when the mice were busied with their own affairs, when the spiders dozed in their hammocks, and only the little gray moths fluttered to and fro, a feeling of sadness came over her. For dolls are made for children and deep in every doll's heart there is a longing to be loved by a child. And at times, when the rain beat on the shingles and the smell of wet earth came up through the attic window, something stirred in the little doll's memory. She recalled dimly a time when some one had really loved her, some one who had carried her about and put her to bed at night, and on rainy days like these played with her on the nursery floor. It was so long ago that the little wooden doll could not remember very clearly, but she knew that these things had once happened, and she thought that if only some little child would come again to the attic, and play with her, she would be quite happy."

  One day the mice, who are wonderful eavesdroppers, report that children are coming to stay in the house. The little wooden doll is very excited, and tries to tidy herself, for she has become very dusty in all her years in the attic. The mice help with the spots she can't reach, and the little wooden doll readies herself to be found by the children, in her corner by a stack of old books.

  The children don't come to the attic until they venture up one rainy day. 

They do find the little wooden doll, but it's not the happy ending the little wooden doll was expecting. The children think she's old fashioned, and ridicule her for her dirtiness, her lack of clothes, and her missing paint. When they are called downstairs the little wooden doll is dumped on the window ledge.

   Whether  she falls by accident, or lets herself fall out of hopelessness, the little wooden doll drops out the window and falls into the flower bed below. Her mice friends come to her rescue, of course, and in a "Wizard of Oz"-like moment, ("Stay with us then Dorothy. We all love you. We don't want you to go.") , ask the little wooden doll to let them take her back to the attic to stay with them, because they love her. 

  But it's decided that the little wooden doll needs to be brought back to her original beauty so a child will love her. There are wonderful descriptions of how the animals and insects transform the little wooden doll.

 I'll save that pleasure for your own reading experience. I'll also save the end of the book for your own reading and not spoil the surprise.

  Although the book is so well written in so many other ways, the ending, which is the payoff we've been waiting for, seems a little rushed. It's as if someone told the author, "You only have a few more pages Margery. Wrap this story up."  I still recommend the book though. The old fashioned, flowery storytelling is wonderful and warm. The story is familiar, the old tale of a toy who longs to be loved by a child, but it's beautifully told. Small children can enjoy the book, as can adults! It may be a bit slow moving for very small kids, but all kids are different. Emma was sitting for old fashioned books like this when she was less than 4, but then, that's Emma.

  Oddly enough, Margery Williams Bianco wrote a horror story too, a werewolf story called, "The Thing in the Woods", published in 1914. For some reason it was revised for American publication, and a pseudonym, Harper Williams, was used. Even more odd, H.P. Lovecraft was a fan of the book. He wrote a poem called "On The Thing in the Woods by Harper Williams", and some believe the book influenced Lovecraft's own creepy book, "The Dunwich Horror"! (I really dislike Lovecraft stuff. It's way too crawly for me.) 

 The Little Wooden Doll has lovely illustrations by Margery's daughter, Pamela Bianco. 

Pamela illustrated the book at the age of 19. By that age she was an old hand at art, having been something of a child prodigy. She had exhibitions of her work in London, New York, and cities across the United States before she was 17. Pamela wrote and illustrated many books, and illustrated books by other authors as well, including her mother's, "The Skin Horse". Her work is shown in many museums, and a retrospective of her work was held in London in 2004.

  Some of you may know Margery Williams Bianco's most well known book, the heartbreaking, "The Velveteen Rabbit". Ken and I used to read "The Velveteen Rabbit" to Emma when she was very small. It's a beautiful and beautifully written story, but as I said, absolutely heartbreaking. Ken and I would sit on opposite ends of the couch, with Emma in the middle, and take turns reading the book to her, each one passing it to the other when they were crying too hard to continue. It went back and forth until we reached the end of the book. Ken didn't help me read it to the other kids, as I recall. I know I read it to Ivy alone. (When I cried reading a book to Ivy she just looked at me and asked me why I was crying. She still makes fun of me when I cry during movies.) Maybe some day I'll review "The Velveteen Rabbit" here. I expect I'll be brought to tears just doing that. 

  That's the doll book of the month. I'll see you again soon for all sorts of posts, including the long promised Maru and Friends review.

A Belated Christmas List

   I haven't been around for  while. As I've said before, it isn't as convenient to post when I don't have a computer of my own. (I have a cell phone, (without phone service) now, and everybody keeps telling me how I can do the blog on that. There's no way! I am terrible at typing on those things, and there's no way I can edit photos on there.) Also, I've been spending what time I can with Ivy, as she will be going back to college next month. As a consequence,  I am falling way behind in my posts. I never showed you my small doll show haul. I still will though. (I can't believe that was back in October! I didn't realize it was that long ago until I looked back to check on something!) I still need to show you Elasti Girl, from my Christmas presents, in more detail, and I made a very cool Goodwill haul recently. So I have a lot to do. But, it's like SNL character Middle Aged Man's gut: "I'm workin' on it!"

  I undecorated our Christmas tree, and I need to repack a few Christmas tubs to once again narrow down the main tub of things we put on the tree. I put even less stuff on this year than I did last time. I pretty much only put the following on the tree:

1. ornaments the kids made

2. ornaments with the kids' pictures, which are mostly ones they made at school

3. ornaments Unsentimental Niece made for me, or sold me when she was in Brownies

4. the ornament Emma sold for school

5. the Kermit ornament Lori bought me for Christmas about a million years ago, (70's or maybe early 80's)

6. ornaments our friend Kathy made for us when we got married, and our first married Christmas

7.  A couple of blown glass 'bubbles' that I love. I somehow ended up with two when Ken and the kids bought me one to replace one that got broken...but why are there two now?

8. mini stocking my mom gave me one year

9. sparkly ornament shaped gift tag Dad got on a Christmas present in the nursing home and gave to me. It was the last thing he gave me.

10. ornament my friend Lisa, (The one I visited in Texas), gave us when we got married

11. two ornaments I made in second grade

12. antique ornament Fuzz and I found on a thrown out Christmas tree on the way home from school one day when Fuzz was small.

13.our first Christmas together, first married Christmas, and first Christmas as parents ornaments

14. ornaments from Ken's sister Diane, including one that's a frame. I put a picture of Ken and all his sisters in it that was taken when we visited.

There's also the angel, and paper chains the kids made.

  That's most of the important stuff, right? I also snuck on a couple of my favourite ornaments, like the moon with a face I got at Harrods.When I find them I'll put a North Wind, and a snow fairy in the box. Those have always been two of my favourites.

Ken always insists on lots of lights. My rose shaped lights don't seem to work any more. I'll have to work on those. I do have the winged pig lights Emma bought for me because I love pigs though.

  I honestly didn't have any dolls on my Christmas list last year. I had recently fulfilled a couple long time wants with the Little Darling doll that kind reader Dorothy sent me, and the Savannah I got from TTBP Emily not long before Christmas. I really only have a few wants left. Most of those are hard to get or very expensive, so I wouldn't even ask for them. What are they? Well, if you have read any of my previous Christmas lists here on the blog, you'll know I wanted a Hamish, friend of Amelia Thimble. Well, I still do. 

He's quite pricey though. 

   I'd also still love to have a Helen Kish Lark doll. My favourite two are Creamcicle Lark, and Lark of the High Seas.

These are so far out of range I can't even see them!

  As I was telling Ken the other day, I still want a few more dolls to sort of complete a couple of collections. One collection is dolls made from the Drowsy head sculpt,(Like this one and this one and this one. There are also these ), and the dolls I still need are Teachy Keen and Baby Charlotte. The other collection is the talking, face moving dolls made by Mattel in the 60's. The dolls I need are Little Sister Look n Say, and Baby Secrets.

  I would love the Roldan doll I didn't buy at that last doll show,  and her Klumpe 'cousin', a girl with a suitcase. Of course, I would always love another Baps doll or Tiny Town doll, or more Caco dolls. I still haven't gotten my Animator's Collection Alice doll yet either.

I'm sure there are more I want if I think about it. (Of course there are!) Aready I'm thinking that I still would love to have Garden Patience, and I'd like to have a naked, bald Agnes Dreary to make into an Alice in Wonderland. (Look at the original illustrations. Alice was a grouchy looking kid.)

  I need to stop. I keep thinking of more!

  I promise there will be another post soon!

Happy New Year! and What I Got For Christmas

   Happy New Year! I hope everybody had a good holiday season. We did pretty well, except for a flare up of anxiety by one of us on Christmas. It was unexpected, and upset the day and everyone at the time, but it all turned out ok in the end. 

  Unfortunately I did not get a new computer for Christmas. Ken said he couldn't find a good enough deal on one that had everything I wanted in a computer. I was originally panning to bring Doll-A-Day back in 2021, but without my own computer for most of the year, I wasn't able to prepare listings ahead, as I wanted to, and I won't be able to work on posts everyday, like I would need to. So I am considering  a doll post or two a week. We'll see what happens. I have a birthday coming up in March. Maybe Ken will be able to find a deal by then!

  Today I thought I'd show you the doll related gifts I got for Christmas. Here they are.

The Incredibles doll is from my sister, who spent Christmas day with us all at Emma's. I'll talk more about this doll soon.

The BTS dolls are from Ken. I found them at Five Below shortly before Christmas. I know  they had them a while back, but I missed them then. I'm not a fan of BTS, but I like the dolls. They are articulated, but the suits don't allow them as much freedom of movement as they could. 

The red haired Fashionista, the Bullwinkle, (or, as Ivy used to call him when she was little, 'Boywrinkle'.) Pop vinyl, and the World's Smallest Elf on the Shelf are from Emma. 

The World's Smallest Tinkertoys are from Ken.

I wanted the World's Smallest Elf on the Shelf last year, but by the time I found out about him, he was sold out everywhere.

He's jointed at the neck, shoulders, and hips. 

The World's Smallest Tinker Toys and the Mini Brands are from Ken. (I spotted the Mini Brands on a couple of empty boxes at the Target checkouts and wondered aloud what was going to happen to the examples stuck on the front of the boxes.

 Would they be thrown out with the boxes, or would the boxes get refilled? Ken checked it out...)

  There wasn't much Christmas stuff left by Monday, when I went out to try to find marked down Christmas cards for next year. I guess I should have gone out the day after Christmas. I did find these at the front racks at Target, clearanced for 90 cents.

They're about 10 inches tall, maybe 12. They also had some white ones that had snow printed around the edges of the 'glass'. (It's plastic really.) I thought they were pretty, and I liked the snowy look. I was imagining beautiful Christmas pictures with these windows in the front of the World family's new house, (which I hope to build some day.) That is, I liked it until I saw that the 'snow' was made up of giant snowflakes. If they were in scale they would be about half the size of your head in real life.  So I switched the white ones for these unpainted ones. I will paint them if I use them on a house, but no giant snowflakes.

  On a sad note, Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island", passed away yesterday at the age of 82. She died from complications from Covid-19. Dawn was a Miss Nevada before landing the role of Mary Ann. She was one of only two cast members living. That leaves only Tina Louise, who played Ginger. 

  I will see you in the new year. Have a great evening!

The Winner of the Doll Book is...

   This should have been easy.  As usual, here were few entries to a competition I've had. In this case, there were the fewest yet: only two.  The problem is, was Korglady entering? It only just occurred to me today that she might have been. The rules said that to enter, you had to name your favourite Doll Book of the Month Club entry. Did she mean The Doll People was her favourite Doll Book of the Month? She said she'd read them, so maybe she has them, so would she even want another copy?  I took it as an entry, and along with Dorothy's obvious entry, it was written on a small piece of paper and drawn 'at random', (As random as it can be when there are only two.), by Fuzzy. The winner was Korglady. If Korgady will respond, and tell me if she actually intended to enter, that would be great. If she didn't, Dorothy, you win. I might point out that both of these people have won prizes before, because they actually bother to enter. Do I just give away stuff no one wants, or what? 

   In any case, merry Christmas everybody! And happy holidays!

The Doll Book of the Month Club: The Doll People Series. Plus, A Giveaway!

   I'm way late with this month's Doll Book of the Month Club entry. I'm still coughing, headachy, tiring and running out of breath easily. I don't even have my Christmas tree up yet! As the saying goes though, better late than never. This month's book is actually a series of books, The Doll People series, by Ann M. Martin, (Author of the Babysitter's Club books.), and Laura Godwin, and illustrated by Brian Selznick. (You may remember Brian Selznick as the author and illustrator of  "The Invention of Hugo Cabret", the basis for the movie "Hugo".) There are five books in the series, four chapter books, and one younger children's book. Ivy and I read most of them when she was small. She outgrew them, and I read the 4th one without her, because I loved the books and wanted to know what happened to the characters. 

  The first book in the series is The Doll People. 

  We meet the two doll families we know throughout the books. The first family we meet is the Dolls. They are a family of antique dollhouse dolls, over a hundred years old. They, and their house, have been passed down through the same family for generations. They currently belong to Kate Palmer, but used to belong to Grama Katherine, who lives with the Palmers.  At one point Grama Katherine admits to a curious Kate, that she also thought the dolls might actually be alive when she was a child. Kate's sister, Nora likes to come in and play what she calls 'rancher family' with The Dolls and her own farm animal toys. 'Rancher Family is pretty rough, (One session ends in a talcum powder snow storm that covers everything.), and the Dolls hate it. But, of course, they can't do anything about it: They're dolls. If they are caught moving or talking in front of humans they go into what's called 'Doll State': 24 hours of being unable to move or talk. (The dolls take an oath when they are made, to never give away the lives of dolls to humans.)  Worse yet is  'Permanent Doll State', which happens when a doll does something especially bad to give away the secret lives of dolls. Once a doll goes into 'Permanent Doll State, they will never be alive again. From then on, they are only a regular doll. 

  The main character is Annabelle, perpetually eight years old, with green hair because of a past owner's artistic efforts. Her best friend arrives in Nora's new Fun Craft dollhouse. She's a very modern, plastic doll named Tiffany. The Funcrafts are the other family of dolls the books follow. Tiffany, being a modern girl, and made of worry free, unbreakable plastic, is maybe even more adventurous than Annabel. (Or at least more reckless.)

  Annabelle lives with her parents, her brother, her baby sister, (who was sent by mistake all those years ago, and came from a different set of much larger dolls.), their nanny, and Uncle Doll. Uncle Doll's wife, Auntie Sarah, has been missing for the last forty five years. When Annabelle finds Auntie Sarah's diary, she uncovers some clues, and is determined to find Auntie Sarah. Fortunately, the house the Palmers live in has also been passed down in the family for years, so Auntie Sarah might still be on the premises. 

  Annabelle and Tiffany risks cat attacks, breakage, (Well, Annabelle, at least, is made of porcelain.), and Doll State to find Auntie Sarah. Do they find her? How would her reappearance be explained? Where has she been all those years? 

  The second book, "The Meanest Doll in the World", finds Annabelle and Tiffany eager to see what school is like. 

They hide in Kate's back pack and travel to school. When it's time to return home, the dolls climb into the wrong back pack by accident, and end up at another house, where they meet several other dolls, including Mean Mimi. Mimi follows Annabelle and Tiffany back home, where she threatens everyone's lives by being seen moving. 

  In the third book, "The Runaway Dolls", a package from one hundred years ago is discovered behind a piece of furniture in an old shop. 

It shows up at the Palmers house, but it's addressed to the inhabitants of one hundred years ago, and the Palmers have gone on vacation. Annabelle, ever curious, investigates. She hears a tiny voice coming from inside the package. Is it her long lost baby sister? (Remember, the wrong baby sister was sent with the rest of the family, leaving them with a giant baby that barely fits on her parents' laps. But they love her anyway.) Annabelle can't resist letting her sister out of the package, (What if it gets returned because it's addressed to someone else?!), even though her parents don't believe that's who she is. Since her parents won't accept the new daughter, Annabelle decides the only thing to do is run away. This seems out of character for Annabelle, who usually has more sense than that. Even Annabelle doubts her decision pretty quickly.

  The dolls, (Tiffany came with Annabelle and her sister Tilly.), are joined this time by their brothers. The dolls have many adventures, but I won't spoil the ending. I liked this book just slightly less than the first two. Not that it wasn't good, but the books seemed to be falling into the old sequel trap of not being as good as the original.

  The last full length book, (So far.), is "The Doll People Set Sail". 

I have to say that this story of the Dolls and the Funcrafts getting accidentally donated to charity,(Shades of Toy Story 3!), and shipped to England, is my least favourite of the series. It isn't bad. It's just the weakest of the four full length books. They also lost their long time illustrator with this one, which sees Brett Helquist taking over the duties. 

His illustrations aren't bad, but lack the magic of Selznick's.

  I haven't even seen the short book, "The Doll People's Christmas" in a store, so I can't tell you much about it.

                                               I can tell you I hate the way Tiffany and Annabelle look on the cover.

 The illustrations are by Brett Helquist and are in colour this time. There are 48 pages. Annabel is looking forward to showing Tiffany a traditional Christmas when Kate and Nora decide to use the dolls in a nativity scene DOWNSTAIRS. Will they get back to the dollhouse in time for Christmas?  Can  they get past Captain, the cat? What about the broken Christmas star on the dollhouse tree?

  The reading level for the first four books is listed in one place as 7-10, and in another as 8-12. I think even younger kids could enjoy having the books read to them. Warning though: Mimi is pretty frightening!

  And now for that giveaway! I'm sorry it will only be open to residents of the continental United States, but no fear. In the new year there will be a contest open to everybody. As for this competition, a hardcover, (first edition I think!), copy of  "The Meanest Doll in the World" will go to a winning reader. Comment with your favourite Doll Book of the Month Club post of the year to enter. A winner will be pulled from a 'hat' on December 24th, so get your entries in. I apologize the book won't arrive in time for Christmas, but the original plan was, of course, to have posed this on December first, and give the readers two weeks to enter. Things don't always go as planned.

  As this is the last Doll Book of the Month Club entry for the year, I wanted to remind everyone of a doll book I posted about several years ago. It's one of my favourites from my childhood. You can read about "Merry, Rose, and Christmas Tree June" HERE.

  I'll see you again soon!