Little House by Katya Balen

Juno's dad works for an aid organisation in a faraway place. Juno is used to her dad's absence but now her mum is going away too. Juno will stay with her grandfather for a few weeks. She does know him, but she has not stayed at his house, and she is desperately missing her mum. On her first day, though, Juno discovers a water damaged doll house in the attic. Perhaps she is too old to play with this but somehow the little, fragile dolls seem to be asking for her care. Her grandfather is a woodworker and so together they build a new house for the four little dolls and then Juno uses her art skills to fill the interiors with rugs, paintings and wallpaper.

This is a book for readers aged 8+ who enjoy quiet stories about relationships. Katya Balen creates a beautiful grandfather character. He does not ask to many questions; he is a fabulous cook, and he is happy to let Juno take her time with talking about her worries.

This is a book for thoughtful readers and is to be recommended. Books for Keeps

Heart-warming without being sentimental ... Just Imagine

I previously read and enjoyed three books by Katya Balen - covers below (Birdsong is also a Barrington Stoke title). I am collecting books for a presentation to my local Teacher-Librarians and I wanted to include a few titles from Barrington Stoke. You can see their whole catalogue here. 

Key Features of this series:

October October Winner of the Carnegie Medal

Foxlight

Birdsong (Barrington Stoke)

The Doll People by Ann M Martin and Laura Godwin illustrated by Brian Selznick

"Outside the dollhouse, in Kate's room and beyond, everything changed. Little girls grew up and had little girls of their own, people left the house and went to work or on vacations. History was made. Things happened. But inside the dollhouse, not much happened, as far as Annabelle was concerned. The only important event in her entire, one hundred-year life was that Auntie Sarah had disappeared."

This quote from the second page of The Doll People gives me a good way to talk about the plot of this delightful page turner. The setting is a dollhouse owned by the Palmer family. The current child owner is eight year old Kate. The seven dolls in the house - note once there were eight dolls - are old and fragile but Kate plays with them carefully. Her much younger sister Nora, on the other hand, is rough and careless especially when she invades the dollhouse with her collection of farmyard pet toys known as the Rancher Family. All of this is terrifying for Mama, Papa, Annabelle, Bobby, Uncle Doll, Nanny, and Baby Betsy.

Luckily the parents have noticed Nora's interest in the dollhouse, so they buy her a brand new very modern dollhouse for her birthday. The Funcrafts are a family of plastic dolls - mum, dad, Tiffany, Bailey and Baby Britney. This new dollhouse has a patio, a BBQ, a microwave oven (although it is pretend) and even a computer. The Doll family have no idea about any of these things. They have a piano, a rocking horse and a 1933 set of National Geographic magazines.

When Annabelle meets Tiffany her life changes. Now she has a friend and even better together they can solve the mystery of Aunt Sarah who has been missing for 45 years but this means they will need to leave the dollhouse and explore downstairs and upstairs and even the attic all the time careful to avoid the family cat named The Captain. Oh and there are terrible consequences if any of the dolls are seen by the humans.

When I spied this book at a recent charity book sale I was so intrigued. I have loved other books (not Babysitters Club) by Ann M Martin but what really caught my eye was the name Brian Selzick illustrated of Hugo Cabret, Wonderstruck and all of those terrific book covers for Andrew Clements. Luckily my hardcover copy of this book from 2000 only cost $2 the actual retail price is close to AUS$50. The family who gave this book to the fair also donated the third book - The Runaway Dolls.

I read The Doll People over just two days and I loved it!  This would be a terrific book to read in a family as a night time read aloud. It could be read to a range of young reading fans from age 6-10. the illustrations are fabulous, the cover on my copy has a different image underneath and the end papers are filled with advertisements for the original dollhouse and the new Funcraft version.  

I love that this story is simple.  It seems so many of our books are about complex dystopian worlds with life or death problems and nail biting adventures.  ...  I so enjoyed the simplicity of the story and how the characters navigated through life. I love that this book is about the secret lives of dolls.  I love that they hope and discover and take risks.  I love the mystery of Auntie Sarah and the adventures Annabelle and her friends and family have searching for her.  I love the relationships that develop throughout the book. Nerdy Book Club

Listen to an audio sample here. There are several more books in the series.

• The Doll People (2003)
• The Meanest Doll in the World (2005)
• The Runaway Dolls (2010)
• The Doll People Set Sail (2016)

This one is a picture book published in 2016

Stories about dolls and doll houses fascinate me. This book is a blend of The Borrowers and Miss Happiness and Miss Flower and it also has the vibe of Toy Story. Read this review from Books4yourkids.

52 Mondays by Anna Ciddor

This book is based on Anna Ciddor's childhood memories. Anna, living in 1960s Australia, borrows a book from the library:

"Hitty, the life and adventures of a wooden doll."

Anna's love of this book and the doll called Hitty drives the plot as she searches every week at a local antique auction house for a doll like Hitty.  I was utterly convinced this was not a real book - but it is! It won the Newbery Medal in 1930. I think the real title might be Hitty, the first hundred years. It is  by Rachel Field. Perhaps in Australia it had a different title.

I think Anna would be thrilled to discover someone produced a sewing pattern for Hitty dolls and that you can even find Pinterest collections about her.

If you have an adult friend who was a child in the 1960s then this book - 52 Mondays would make an excellent gift. I have discovered Anna and I are almost the same age and because this book is based on her own childhood I recognised so many of these:

• Milk deliveries by horse and cart
• Birds pecking the tops of the milk to get the cream
• Vita wheat biscuits with butter and vegemite
• Deb mashed potato
• Green grocer shops where your purchases are put into paper bags
• That same grocer spinning the paper bag so the corners twisted into neat seals
• Listening to The Children's hour on the radio
• Cleaning the black board duster at school
• School milk
• Sewing at school
• Lollies from the milk bar - violet crumbles, lolly teeth, fruit tingles, and best of all lolly cigarettes

My favourite memory comes in Chapter 32 when Anna talks about putting a tennis ball into the end of an old stocking and hitting it against a wall while chanting a rhyme.

I am not supposed to include text quotes because I have read an Advanced Reader Copy of 52 Mondays but I cannot resist this line:

"Anna went on reading Hitty every moment she could. She tried to slow down and make the book last longer, but too many exciting things kept happening."

If you are a librarian or a Teacher-Librarian make sure you read Chapter 28. Memories of catalogue drawers, due date slips, book pockets and having a date stamped on your own hand!

The structure of 52 Mondays with Anna waiting for Monday each week when she can go to the auction house hoping to find an antique doll means the plot moves along at a pleasing pace and I liked the way each chapter reads as a distinct story. The addition of Jewish family traditions added to my interest.

This book is a companion volume to an earlier title by Anna. I had The Family with two front doors on my too read pile for over a year. I have not yet read it and now it has disappeared. Perhaps I gave it to a friend for her library. Now I will have to retrieve it. Oddly the reviews of this one wildly disagree about the audience. Sue warren of Just So Stories says 12+, Ms Yingling says it might not appeal to her Middle Grade students, and Megan Daley will or has used this with her Grade Six Book Club girls.

Anna loves dolls and doll houses. I was desperate for a dolls house when I was a child but I did have some very special dolls. Here is one of them:

Candy Floss and Impunity Jane by Rumer Godden

Several months ago I talked about a book called Everything I need to know I learned from a children's book.  I then talked about one of the books that 'taught' me things Miss Happiness and Miss Flower by Rumer Godden.  In the book Everything ... by Anita Silvey she mentioned Impunity Jane also by Rumer Godden and so I was keen to read this.  None of the libraries I have visited recently held this title so I purchased an second hand copy which arrived this week.

Published in 1954 Impunity Jane is a very old book as is the companion story Candy Floss is from 1957. My edition contains both stories in one slim volume published in 1992.  I was not able to find a cover image but here are a few old copies to give you some idea.

I did enjoy both of these stories but it is Candy Floss that will linger with me the longest.  I can see exactly where Rumer Godden found her idea for Belinda in Miss Happiness and Miss Flower (1961) because in Candy Floss she has a very similar character named Clementina.

Here is the tune Jack's music box plays :

Candy Floss

Candy Floss is a special little doll who lives with a carnival man who runs a coconut shy.  I think I must have read about this game when I was a child because I know it has always fascinated me.

Along with Candy Floss, Jack has his friends Cocoa a little dog who sits on a stool beside the shy and Nuts, a little wooden horse who sits on a music box.  Candy Floss sits on the horse's back and she turns around and around.

Jack is kept busy with his shy but when all the coconuts are won he covers over Nuts and pops Candy Floss in his pocket where "there was a hole handy so she could see out."  Together with Cocoa they enjoy all the fun of the fair - rides, games and food.  Then they spend their nights in an old van.  If Candy Floss is looking a little worn out or "when she needed a new dress Jack would soak the old one off with hot water, fluff up a new one and stick it on with glue." Life is happy for our little group moving on from one fair to another until the day Clementina comes to visit.  She is an unhappy and indulged little girl who has been given the most amazing toys and treats but nothing is ever good enough until she sees Candy Floss.  Jack patiently explains Candy Floss is not for sale so when Jack is busy with a customer Clementina snatches her.  Candy Floss cannot speak but she knows dolls can send wishes to receptive children.  Eventually Candy Floss does get through to Clementina and she returns the precious doll to Jack. A lesson is learned and a new friendship forged.

Impunity Jane

"This little doll is very strongly made ... Why, you could drop her with impunity. ... Impunity means escaping without hurt."

Impunity Jane's name is a self fulfilling prophesy.  Over fifty years she has so many owners Effie, Elizabeth, Ethel and Ellen.  None of these girls are even sightly interested in Impunity Jane and she languishes at the bottom of the dolls house but one day Ellen's cousin Gideon comes to play "and suddenly Impunity Jane knew she could make Gideon feel. 'Rescue me,' wished Impunity Jane as hard as she could."

Gideon slips Impunity Jane into his pocket and her wonderful adventures begin but there is a complication - Gideon is a boy with a toy doll.  Think about the exploration of this idea in 1954!