DOLL WEEK!!!

-

I loved dolls when I was a kid.  Madame Alexander, Barbie, baby dolls, cloth dolls.  I even went through a period where I made dolls out of my mom's old pantyhose.  I made an orphanage out of a cardboard box, furniture, bookshelves, books and all, and stocked it with kids.  I made dolls with papier-mâché heads and arms and loads of yarn hair.  Surprisingly, I did not turn out to be a collector of dolls as an adult, however I did indulge my daughter pretty seriously, sinking a lot of money into American Dolls...
Now that my seven and a half year old niece is becoming interested in her mom's old dollhouse and sewing, I started thinking about all the books about dolls that I also loved and decided to do a week of reviews of the wonderful picture and chapter books that have dolls and/or doll houses as their main characters.  Boys, don't feel left out.  Most of the stories are universal, ofen adventurous and surprisingly not as pink as you would expect!

[This is the very set (minus the tags) of Madame Alexander Little Women Dolls I collected as a kid.  Didn't get around to reading the book until I was an adult, despite the dolls...]
I am sure that I have overlooked or just don't know about some of the other incredible doll books out there, so I am hoping that you all will write in with enough titles for me to do another whole week of doll stories in the future!

For those of you who are interested, the New York Times ran this article back in April Modern Design, in Miniature, is Growing.  There are links to some interesting blogs by miniaturists that your kids might get a kick out of.

Popular posts from this blog

Fox + Chick: The Sleepover and Other Stories by Sergio Ruzzier

-
Image
Fox + Chick : The Sleepover and Other Stories  by Sergio Ruzzier Review Copy from Chronicle Books Friends. Opposites. Inhabitants of a pastel-hued, water color world that is vaguely surreal, Fox and Chick are back for a third installment of their inviting, if curious, easy-to-read stories. In "The Sleepover," "The Hammer," and "The Surprise," Chick's odd logic is once again upending Fox's life. Happily, Fox responds with patience and even wisdom at times. To these unforgettable characters and luminous illustrations, Ruzzier brings a sublime simplicity that makes this series perfect for emerging readers, adding books with character and intelligence to the often dull world of beginning reader books. If you aren't familiar with this delightful duo, definitely check out my reviews of the first two books (links below) where I put the greatness of Ruzzier's work into historical ( Frog & Toad ) context. Then check out ALL of Ruzzier's p
Read more

Be a Tree! by Maria Gianferrari illustrated by Felicita Sala

-
Image
Be a Tree! by Maria Gianferrari illustrated by Felicita Sala Review Copy from Abrams Kids I picture-walked Be a Tree! three times before I actually read the words. Felicita Sala's illustrations for Maria Gianferrari's poetic text are mesmerizingly immersive and richly colorful within a palette of earth tones. Throughout the text, Gianferrari, who shares her inspiration for this book in the author's note ( Peter Wohleben's The Hidden Life of Trees ), gently maintains the human connection to trees and the connections (and communications) trees share with each other.  Be a Tree!  begins exuberantly, inviting the reader to "Be a tree! Stand tall. Stretch your branches to the sun. Let your roots curl, coil in the soil to ground you." From your spine/trunk to your skin/bark and your heart/pith, the words carry you inward and then zoom outward and up to the canopy and ultimately, the forest. "You are one of many trees," and our roots "twine with fung
Read more

Reading Levels: A Quick Guide to Determining if a Book Is Right for Your Reader

-
Image
While I wrote an article titled Reading Levels: How I Assign Reading Levels to Books, How the Publishers Do It and How You Can Help Your Reader Find the Right Book at the Right Time that discusses how reading levels are determined by professionals and amateurs like myself, there is more on this subject to discuss. Determining the reading level of a book from the children's section is never easy, mostly because there are several different standardized methods of determining reading levels. Add to this the fact that knowing their children's reading level is most often the only tool a parent is armed with when exploring the bookstore, library, website, etc, and the job becomes even more difficult. While I think that knowing a child's reading level is a very valuable tool if your child is reading below grade level, I think that it is a secondary consideration when finding books for children reading above, especially well above, grade level because, in most cases, content app
Read more