Haul From the Toy Show, Part 1: You Want Some of This Stuff?

  I promised to show you some of the stuff I got at the recent toy show, including the contents of a huge tub that I got for a bargain price. I have been busy getting ready for our trip, and feeling awful, so I am only just getting to part one. I have little excuse because I took the pictures a few days after the show. I am having a problem with the pictures on my computer. The thumbnails aren't all showing up. So to even know where certain pictures are, I have to click on them to see them. It's a real pain.

  Speaking of real pains, the leg is still bothering me. Or, should I say, bothering me again. I have had a couple of periods of respite. It was weird, but last weekend I went with Emma to a Killers concert, and something amazing happened. She let me out of the car near the entrance and went to park the car. I walked up the sloping area up to the entrance, and it was so painful. I was limping. The guy at the door even said to me, "You can make it. You're almost there!" Emma had the tickets on her phone, so I stood outside the door to wait on her. It was cold and I tensed up, as I do in the cold. In a couple of minutes I noticed that my leg wasn't hurting any more. I took a few steps and there was no limp! I had tensed up in such a way that I had apparently freed the nerve that's affecting my leg. I speed walked all over the place in front of the entrance, just enjoying walking without a limp for the first time in months. I kept walking until Emma got back from parking the car about a mile away. (Not literally.) I was fine until I went in and warmed up and my leg pain started coming back again. It wasn't too bad during the show, but it was awful by the time we got back home. (The concert was in Cleveland, so it was a couple of hours after the show. Sitting in the truck on the way home messed with my spine again. So, if the weather is cold enough when we go to Europe, maybe my leg will be fine! My sister-in-law, Diane, (the one with the beautiful view from her garden, which I have shown you.), sent me a thing the other day about how they are expecting unusually cold weather and maybe snow and ice in the north in early November. Great. My leg may be fine, but I'll freeze to death.

On another note, even though I'm not supposed to eat them any more, I grew tomatoes this summer. I got them started late, because my usual method of throwing some seeds into the amaryllis plants at the end of summer and letting them self start the next spring didn't produce any results this year. I think it was because it was so cold far into the Spring, so the amaryllis just stayed inside and didn't get watered as early as they usually do. That's mostly because I asked to do it and he kept forgetting. Anyway, the late start and the incredibly slow growing tomatoes meant that the weather turned cold before they got full grown. Not super cold, but cool enough that they pretty much stopped growing before they got full size. Finally though, it got cold enough at night that I gave up, and picked the tiny tomatoes and brought them inside to ripen. I did that one year, and it took them months to get ripe. No kidding. They laid around for ages and didn't rot. They just ripened slowly. So I was surprised to see that one of these guys was ripe already, and I only picked them a week or two ago. So I present too you, my ENTIRE crop of tomatoes this year.

That is IT! And keep in mind, this is a very small aluminum take out container. It's not even pie pan sized.

I ate the ripe one tonight. We'll be off on our trip on Monday, (day after tomorrow), and I'll miss all the others! I waited all summer, and all I got was that one tiny tomato! Good thing I cheated and bought some! Maybe, MAYBE that one other one will be ripe enough to eat Monday, and I can put it on a sandwich to take with me.

But anyway, back to the tub from the show. There was originally a tub and a box. The dealer said dolls in them were $2 a piece, or the whole box or tub for $30. Then it changed to both the tub and the box for $30. Then it was both for $20! Since I had picked out several dolls already I was on the fence. I neither needed nor wanted all the stuff. But it didn't make sense to spend $10 or $12 on a few dolls, when the whole lot was only a little more. One question decided the whole thing: "Do I get the tub too?" The guy said yes, so that settled it. Who can't use a good tub, with a lid? And that thing is heavy duty too. I thought maybe I could offer the rest of the contents that I don't want to you guys for bargain prices and get rid of the stuff that way. There are some interesting dolls in there.

My sister and I condensed the tub and the box down to the tub and a few leftover dolls, and the guy carried it to the car for us. Or, at least, he tried to. We couldn't find the car. My sister insisted we were in a parking lot I was sure we hadn't been near, at an entrance that wasn't the way we entered. Big sisters think they know everything. You know. I tried my horn button on my keys, but we were too far away I guess. My leg was killing me, so my sister went up and asked the people at the gate where we would have parked at the other entrance, and how we could get there. She was sure we would have to be at the other end of the fairgrounds, at the other gate. She was prepared to walk all the way to the other entrance and bring the car back for me. But that sounded wrong to me. I knew we had driven a bit after going through the entrance, and we both realized we'd had our money taken by the people parking the cars, and not at an entrance, and that we had entered the closest building to the entrance we were now near, first. So I went up and asked the people at the gate: If I came in at the other entrance, and my money was taken by the car parkers, and that building is the first one we came to, where would we have been parked? They said, "Oh, you'll be in that parking lot right there." They pointed to the parking lot right before the entrance where we were, on the inside of the fence. We were there all along.

So I walked within sight of where my sister was waiting and got the car, drove the car out and back in, to where my sister was waiting, and we got the stuff in the car. Here's the tub. It's a big one.

This is only part of the stuff. Remember, it wouldn't all fit in the tub. Plus, it's very deep.

Let's look at these kids first.

She's so cute.

Made in the People's Republic of China.

My favourite thing is her shoes.

The other boxed kid.

Also made in the People's Republic f China.

These shoes aren't nearly as interesting.

Then there is this girl.

Her toes are curling up.

And then there's this kid, who did not have a box.

I'm not sure what she's made out of. Her face is all cracked.      

Cute shoes.

  Speaking of shoes, these were in the tub.

  These are not my thing at all, and are definitely available. Anybody want these? One dollar! (plus shipping.)

  There was this Penny brite. For some reason i always feel compelled to rescue Penny Brites. This one is wearing the dress and bloomers from Calico Lassie, other wise known as the Elly May Clampett doll.

  This lady is Little Miss Ginger. 

 

She's even wearing shoes.

Her nails are painted. Not sure if it's original. It looks it. 

She has a nice hair colour, and blue sleep eyes.

  Ginger is about 10 inches tall, and was made by Cosmopolitan in the late 50's. There was also a Ginger who looked like a Ginny, and a baby Ginger too. I know that because we had one. She's actually my sister's doll, and she still has her. 

Her name is written on the back of her head.

Ginger's stringing is a bit loose, but that's fixable. Anybody want her? $15 plus shipping!

Then there's her friend, Miss Nancy Ann.

  Miss Nancy Ann is indeed related to the Nancy Ann Storybook dolls.

She has beautiful hair.

She's also 10 inches tall, and available for adoption. Even nakee she has to be worth $10 plus shipping. Anybody?

  I wanted this beautiful Midge. My sister said, "That's Midge?!" I said yes, and she said, "Midge wishes!"

  Then there was this thing, uh, girl. 

My sister actually looked her up pretty much right away.

Turns out that her name is Carol, The 'Color-Me' doll. 

She came with a pack of crayons you could use to color her hair, eyes, eye brows, mouth, and clothes.

Her legs are stationary, but her arms move, and if you try hard enough, her head slightly turns.

I think she could be coloured over and over again, but I'm not sure how you got the first colouring off of her.

  She's anybody's for $5 and shipping.

  My sister and I both really like this one. She's a souvenir doll from Mexico, probably from the 40's.

She has a great face. 

She has a bit of a pallid complexion though. 

  Her arms and legs are jointed with metal pins.

She has painted on shoes and socks.

  She seems almost to be made of plaster. She's staying.

  Then there is this pair of souvenir dolls from Italy.

They'll be right at home in our house, which was bought in 1929 by an Italian couple named Domenica and Natale. Natale passed away, and Domenica lived here until shortly before we bought the house in 1995.

  I love them. Their faces are made of pressed felt, I think.

Their arms have a cloth shoulder joint that lets them lift up.

Great face! And look at that hair.

The Dolomites are a mountain range in Italy.

More shots of that hair do.

Her basket of full of those cute furry flowers.

She even has moveable legs.

The other one is from another part of Italy.

Piemonte, or Piedmont, is an Italian city at the base of the Alps, that borders France and Switzerland. 

That lacy cap makes me think of Martha Washington.

She has a basket of felt flowers.

They don't look like the anklet type.

Sewn in fingers and painted nails.

  That's it for part one. Part two will have to wait until we get back, at least. I just don't have time to photograph everything and get a post written tomorrow. We leave day after tomorrow! We'll be gone for a while, so if you're interested in anything in this post that was for sale, remember that I won't be able to get back to you for about 5 weeks. So leave a comment with what you're interested in, and your contact information. I won't publish the comments until I get back, and I won't publish those with contact information at all, so no fear. 

  The Doll Book of the Month with be published on time. I'll be setting t up to go on while I'm gone. Now I have a confession to make: I almost forgot to take Tammy World with me! I have had too many physical problems and too much to remember! Ken thought of her today, and brought her upstairs for putting in the case. What would a trip post be without Tammy World to lead the way?

  That's all. See you for the Doll Book of the Month Club at the end of the month. And I'll tell you all about our trip when we get back.

The Doll Book of the(Last!) Month Club: Dancing Dilemma

   I am finally here with last month's Doll Book of the Month! The book this time around is Dancing Dilemma. 

It's one of the books in the Only Hearts Club dolls' book series. It's dated 2005! Ack! Were those dolls THAT long ago?! 

  There were a few Only Hearts Club books.

    These books are mainly there to support the dolls. They're the type of books that were spat out to go with the product, and not much care was taken to make them actually good. There isn't even an author listed anywhere in or on the book. The preface page to the book spells out the theme of the doll idea.

Nice idea, but this whole spiel is then repeated word for word in the first page of the book. Did we really need it twice in a row? Does it sound like I'm getting aggravated with this book already? Not exactly aggravated, but let's say that already I'm not a fan. 

  The book is very simply written. We read about Karina flipping her blonde hair, but we really don't know anything else about her except that she likes dancing and belongs to the Only Hearts Club. She doesn't seem to have anything else in her personality. We also don't get descriptions of anybody else. I think we're just supposed to identify them by what doll they are. We should know what they all look like, right? Karina Grace decides to be nice and help a new girl in her ballet class who is having trouble. Then she gets jealous when her teacher singles out the new girl in class instead of her. She really loses it when said girl decides to audition for the role of Clara in the dance school's production of The Nutcracker, that famous ballet about a weird uncle who gives a girl a creepy nutcracker and life size mice dance all over the stage, that every city in the United States does every Christmas season. Karina even tells her that the judges are hard on people, and that the local school athletes come to watch the rehearsals and make fun of the girls auditioning. She then thinks it over and decides to 'fess up about her lies and help her new friend prepare for the audition. She 'thought with her heart and did the right thing'. Good lesson, just told in a not very exciting or interesting way.

  So do these books have any other qualities that make them worthwhile? Well... I'm reminded of the Barbie and Friends Book Club books Emma used to love when she was a kid. (I'll have to review one of those sometime.) Those books were better written, but I don't think the poor writers got credit in those books either. But one thing that really drew Emma to those books was the photo illustrations.

The photos of dolls doing all sorts of things were well done. The costumes were detailed, and not always just regular Barbie clothes the public could buy. (A little frustrating, I'm sure, but the clothes often made the pictures so much more realistic and interesting.) The backgrounds were sometimes photo trickery, but often were nicely done realistic sets, with lots of details to make them seem more like a real place. 

  But the Only Hearts Club books? Hmm. Well, the dolls all wear clothing available either on a doll, or as an individual fashion. That's one thing that could be considered a positive, I suppose. Kids won't get as frustrated. The sets? Okay. I know there wasn't as much money backing The Only Hearts Club as there was backing Barbie. Mattel was never going to let Barbie look shabby. But I could have done better with these pictures! (To see some of my Only Hearts Club doll photos click 'Only Hearts Club dolls' on the sidebar.) For one thing, I know it is sometimes hard to pose the Only Hearts dolls without making them look awkward, because of the cloth covered, wire filled posable legs and arms. The head has to be properly tilted too. But come on people!

Karina gets distracted and falls in ballet class.

  This picture just looks weird. The head on the girl in the middle is tilted weirdly, and Karina looks like she enjoyed her fall. I also have a problem  with their sets. I know, as I said, they didn't have Mattel money, but I could scrape together a better set at home. That floor doesn't even go all the way to the edge of the picture. I can see where the top of the setting ends. And check out that wall. It only goes so far as a white wall, and then it's made of writing paper!

See what I'm saying?

 You know. The kind kids use when they first start learning how to write. And they reuse that wall as the wall for Karina's bedroom, and the writing paper is even more obvious in that picture.

Notice the chair. It seems to be the prototype for the chair actually sold for the Only Hearts Club dolls. You can see mine in some of my posts, including this one and this one.

 Okay, so the book is very simply written and the pictures are maybe a bit disappointing. but do I think the kids who liked the dolls would have enjoyed it? Yes. Probably. It's always fun seeing your dolls in a book. (My kids enjoyed seeing their dolls of themselves in that movie I made for them, and I'm sure that movie wasn't as well made as this book. It was hilarious though. I am hilarious...)

  So that's the book for September. I will have a book post ready to go before we leave and it will go up while I'm gone. As for the trip, I will be hobbling off to Iceland with Ken later this month. We are also going to Scotland, where we have tickets to see Michael Palin! I have been a Monty Python fan since I was about 14. I have followed everything the members have done over the years. This will make three of them I have seen live. From there we visit a friend of mine I haven't seen since 1986. (The last time I tried to visit her, but she had to work, so we only talked on the phone.) After that we go to Ken's home town and visit with two of his sisters. We have about a week with them. While we're there we are going to visit a couple of Ken's friends, who we saw the last time we were over, and my friend Jenny, who I last saw in 1986. I'm very excited about that. We go see a concert by one of Ken's favourites, Gilbert O'Sullivan. (Anybody remember him? "Alone Again Naturally"?) Then we're off to visit Ken's other sister, and eventually we meet up with Emma and Ivy to check out Nottingham, and visit cousins Ken hasn't seen in decades, and visit the prison where Ken was born. (His mother wasn't an inmate! His father was a prison instructor who taught shoe making to the prisoners!) Then we have a few days in London with the girls for Ivy's birthday. After that another few days with Ken's sisters, a big family get together, and a couple of days with my friend Cheryl, who we saw the last time we were over. Then it's off to visit a friend in Germany, a friend in Belgium, and we get to see Bruges. We also might get to see a friend in Strasburg, France. We end the trip with a couple of days in Paris. It's probably our last trip over, so we've tried to fit in everything and everybody we might have wanted to see. Unfortunately the trains in England just went on strike and are going to be very unpredictable  while we are there!

  I don't know what I'm going to do about the leg, except suffer. I still haven't located a new doctor, since mine moved away. Nobody seems to be taking new patients and I'm running out of time before the trip. I've been trying Icy Hot on it but I don't think it's having any affect. I think the only thing that makes a difference is staying off my feet, and, in fact, off my butt too. Laying on my right side seems to be the only pain free position, and sometimes not even that. It has to be a nerve in my back, causing a leg muscle  to tighten. 

  I have a post coming up about the big load of dolls I got at the toy show Saturday, and dolls that you will be able to get your hands on that were in it!  We'll see that in a couple of days. See you then.

Where's That Book Post Then?!

   I know the Book of the Month is a couple of days late. I spent the last week and a half running around getting things done for other people. For one thing we spent a few days getting Fuzz moved and sorted out. I took a day in between to let my leg recover. Yesterday I went with my sister to a toy show, which is quickly becoming over run with dolls. I made some good finds, which I will share with you soon, in more ways than one. In other words,  I got a bulk deal which included a lot of dolls I don't want, so they will be available for adoption. There is some interesting stuff in there. I also got a box full of stuff for an amazing $5, but I'm getting ahead of myself, and my posts, here. I'll show you that stuff soon. And it will have to be soon, because here's a surprise: We are finally taking our trip to England and farther shores! And it's for certain this time, because flights are booked, accommodations arranged, sisters and friends alerted,  arrangements made and remade. We have lift off! And we will be lifting off later this month! So the other thing I've been doing is working on the plans, (most of the big stuff was taken care of by Emma and Ken. I did the small stuff like making connections with friends and reminding people of details and gathering together things we need to take with us, like the luggage scale, plug converters, chargers, gifts for everybody, etc. Before we leave I have to get the rest of my windows scraped, puttied, and painted. With my bad leg that's going to be a challenge. I also need to let my leg rest and heal, or there's going to be a real problem. 

  Anyway, expect the book post tomorrow, and I will have another readied and set to post at the end of the month while we are gone. See you soon!

My Beautiful Bargain Skipper

   I'm still here, and the leg is on the mend. Whether it's because of the massive, (and extremely painful)  pop it did as I was climbing into bed the other night, or because I'm not climbing into bed the same way any more, or a combination of both, I don't know. To explain a little bit, I have an old four poster bed, and with the box springs, (These days they call it a box, because there are no springs in it.), and modern thick mattress, the bed is about waist high for me. (When I was a kid this bed seemed  like it was on a whole other plane.) I have trouble climbing in. So I had taken to climbing up on the side rail and jumping up on the bed, but to do that, I put my foot sideways on the rail, and then lifted all my weight on my sideways leg. That's a lot of weight. I knew it hurt after my leg started acting up, but the theory that that was what was causing the leg pain was something that was only a vague thought until the 'pop'. Anyway, I have stopped climbing in that way, and the leg seems to have gotten so much better so quickly. My new method of climbing into bed involves flopping up as far as I can and bracing one foot against the bed post and shoving. (I'm waiting for the post to snap.) It reminds me of the scene in "Only Murders in the Building" where Steve Martin has been poisoned, and is trying to get himself down to the lobby of the hotel, and ends up sort of upside down in the elevator, trying to push the buttons with his feet.

  But what you are here for is dolls. Today we're looking at one I got at the recent doll show I went to with my sister. I haven't added much to my Skipper collection for a while, but I did get Skipper's Sunny Suity play suit for a dollar at the show, and the girl we're looking at today, for $5!

  I should have taken before and after pictures, but as usual, I was so keen to get her rehabilitated, that I only took 'afters'. But when I got her, her hair was all bunched up on the sides of her head, and her bangs were really frizzy, which is a common problem with pre-mod era Skippers.

She turned out quite nice though. You can't really tell from these pictures, but she has a great shade of bright orange hair.

  She has a bit of an eyebrow rub on one eyebrow, but I could fix that if I wanted to bother. She still looks good.

Her hair is so bright orange that I thought at first she must be a color magic Skipper.

She isn't though, or she would have a brunette painted scalp, and not a red one. (If you don't know what I mean, click 'color magic Skipper' in the sidebar.) Oh well. She still looks great, especially for $5!

I have had a sinus headache for three days, so I am going to take a nap, before Emma picks me up to go to Detroit. I'm Emma's default concert going buddy, and tonight I get to tag along to see Florence and the Machine. I'll see you soon with another doll I got at the show.

Betsy From the Doll Show

   Let's try this again. You don't know this, but I tried to do this post before. I set all the pictures to loading, and then, because it takes ages, I went about doing some other stuff. When I came back the pictures were all loaded, so I 'selected' all the pictures and clicked to load them onto the post. Of course, what I didn't realize  was that while I  was gone the laptop had gone offline. So the pictures didn't show up. It said 'update failed'. I signed back on, but the pictures still weren't showing up, so I assumed I would have to do everything all over again. At that point it was late, my leg hurt, and I was tired, so I gave up for the night. I kept putting off doing it again because it frustrated me. When I did come back to it, I found that the pictures had loaded after all, and were here all the time!

  So I'm doing this today, instead of being out on Fun Day with Ken, for two reasons. One: last night climbing into our tall bed, I popped something in my bad leg. It was excruciating, and it hurts REALLY badly today. I'm staying off it as much as possible, not least of all because moving it hurts so much. The other reason we're home today is that we have finally been planning our trip to England, but Ken discovered a couple of days ago that he can't find his passport. The last time we used our passports was five years ago, when we went to Canada for our anniversary. (We went to Canada on our first date. That's a story and a half, which you might have read in THIS POST.) When we came back I wanted to put our passports in the vanity, where I keep our birth certificates, social security cards, and my passport. I made the mistake of saying, "Let me put yours in here too so it doesn't get lost." Ken was very indignant. How dare I insinuate that he couldn't keep track of his own passport! He wouldn't lose it! So he refused, and found his own storage place for his passport. Five years later we are trying to plan this trip, and he wanted to get the names exactly right on the tickets, because the last time his sister booked the flight and got something slightly different in the names, and they weren't going to let us fly. She had to pay extra to change the name. (She was treating us to the trip.) So he wants my passport, which I got out of the vanity a couple of weeks ago and laid up in the bedroom with some other things I don't want to forget to take. He then proceeded to try to find his passport, and couldn't.  He's torn the house apart looking, and can't find it. I have been vindicated. So now he won't book the trip because he's afraid of getting the name wrong and not being able to use the tickets. I told him, it's almost certainly his full name, and just book it and find his passport later. It hasn't left the house. We'll see.+

  Anyway, today what we're really here for is to look at this doll I got at the doll show recently. Remember I said I went to two doll shows in the space of a week. I went to one on a Sunday, by myself, and the second one I went to the next Saturday, with my sister. We went to the same show last year and it was all really expensive fashion dolls, and just basically things I either couldn't afford or didn't want. So I wasn't crazy about going, but my sister had enjoyed it and wanted to go again.  So we went. But this time I found quite a few things I wanted and could even afford. I even won a door prize! Again! This time it was $25 to spend at the show. Before entering the main sales room, where I placed my entry in the box to win the door prize,  there were a bunch of tables out in the hallway to shop. One table belonged to a guy who knew nothing about dolls, but who said he had 'bought a collection from my buddy". From his table I got this girl.

She's a pre-teen Betsy McCall. You may have seen my other one HERE. This one has a bit of an eye problem, and a haircut. You'll notice in the first few pictures that her one eye  is not sitting in the socket properly. I managed to get it fixed though, and now it stays in place. You can see that in the rest of the pictures.

This is pre-eye fix. She also needs the edges of her eyelashes touched up, but that's no big deal.

That eye was twisted in the socket, and the metal socket was showing at the bottom.

This looks really bad. I kept shoving the metal part down, and it looked fine, but came right back up in no time.

We're getting there!

And fixed!

The eyes on these dolls look a little alien anyway. I had been shoving it so much it started to go sideways. Then I shoved it another direction and it popped into place. I wish I could do that with my leg!

   This one has darker hair than the other one I got. It's a very pretty auburn colour. 

  I did a little part reweaving on her, and her hair is a bit choppy at the back, but it doesn't show much.

  When I got her she was wearing a dress belonging to the Kellogg's Calico Lassie, or  Elly May Clampett doll. I had this dress from some other stuff I bought and it has been waiting for someone to wear it. I think it suits her colouring pretty well. It matches her lips.

It was a windy day at the park!

Ken and I have been going through that park often, to see if we can see any animals. The day I took these pictures we saw some deer, some vultures, and a heron.

She almost looks photoshopped into this picture, but she's not.

This one kind of looks photoshopped too.

  When I went into the woods to take these pictures, so I could get the water in the background, (There's a pond or part of the reservoir back there somewhere.), I found some hickory nuts. Ken helped me and we picked up a bag full. Well, half a bag.

  Then I started taking her picture on this rock, and found that I had lost one of her shoes. (They aren't actually her shoes. I think they're Ginny shoes. They were straight pinned onto her feet!) They don't fit well, but they matched her dress.

I had to back track to where I entered the woods, and I found them. 

  She's not very posable, just neck, shoulders and hips, but I like her.

Especially now that I got her eye fixed.

Next time I'll show you what else I got and tell you what I did with my door prize money. See you then.

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'.