"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.
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)
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.
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