A young girl and her family arrive in an airport in a new country. They are refugees, migrants who have travelled across the world to find safety. Strangers greet them, and one of them gives the little girl a doll. Decades later, that little girl is grown up and she has the chance to welcome a group of refugees who are newly arrived in her adopted country. To the youngest of them, a little girl, she gives a doll, knowing it will help make her feel welcome. Inspired by real events.
A gentle maiden aunt who has been victimized for years unexpectedly retaliates through her talent for making life-sized dolls filled with honey. “The Youngest Doll,” based on a family anecdote, is a stunning literary expression of Rosario Ferré’s feminist and social concerns. It is the premier story in a collection that was originally published in Spanish in 1976 as Papeles de Pandora and is now translated into English by the author. The daughter of a former governor of Puerto Rico, Ferré portrays women loosening the constraints that have bound them to a patriarchal culture. Anger takes creative rather than polemical form in ten stories that started Ferré on her way to becoming a leading woman writer in Latin America. The upper-middle-class women in The Youngest Doll, mostly married to macho men, rebel against their doll-like existence or retreat into fantasy, those without money or the right skin color are even more oppressed. In terms of power and influence, these women stand in the same relation to men as Puerto Rico itself does to the United States, and Ferré stretches artistic boundaries in writing about their situation. The stories, moving from the realistic to the nightmarish, are deeply, felt, full of irony and black humor, often experimental in form. The imagery is striking: an architect dreams about a beautiful bridge that “would open and close its arches like alligators making love”; a Mercedes Benz “shines in the dark like a chromium rhinoceros.” One story, “The Sleeping Beauty,” is a collage of letters, announcements, and photo captions that allows chilling conclusions to be drawn from what is not written. The collection includes Ferré’s discussion of “When Women Love Men,” a story about a prostitute and a society lady who unite in order to survive, and one that illustrates the woman writer’s “art of dissembling anger through irony.” In closing, she considers how her experience as a Latin American woman with ties to the United States has brought to her writing a dual cultural perspective.
The Dollmaker was originally published in 1954 to immediate success and critical acclaim. In unadorned and powerful prose, Harriette Arnow tells the unforgettable and heartbreaking story of the Nevels family and their quest to preserve their deep-rooted values amidst the turmoil of war and industrialization. When Gertie Nevels, a strong and self-reliant matriarch, follows her husband to Detroit from their countryside home in Kentucky, she learns she will have to fight desperately to keep her family together. A sprawling book full of vividly drawn characters and masterful scenes, The Dollmaker is a passionate tribute to a woman's love for her children and the land.
Finalist for the National Book Award: “A family saga in the manner of Gabriel García Márquez,” set in Puerto Rico, from an extraordinary storyteller (The New York Times Book Review). This riveting, multigenerational epic tells the story of two families and the history of Puerto Rico through the eyes of Isabel Monfort and her husband, Quintín Mendizabal. Isabel attempts to immortalize their now-united families—and, by extension, their homeland—in a book. The tale that unfolds in her writing has layers upon layers, exploring the nature of love, marriage, family, and Puerto Rico itself. Weaving the intimate with the expansive on a teeming stage, Ferré crafts a revealing self-portrait of a man and a woman, two fiercely independent people searching for meaning and identity. As Isabel declares: “Nothing is true, nothing is false, everything is the color of the glass you’re looking through.” A book about freeing oneself from societal and cultural constraints, The House on the Lagoon also grapples with bigger issues of life, death, poverty, and racism. Mythological in its breadth and scope, this is a masterwork from an extraordinary storyteller.
A beautifully illustrated cover edition of Rumer Godden's classic story about friendship and family, Miss Happiness and Miss Flower. When little Nona is sent from her sunny home in India to live with her relatives in chilly England, she is miserable. Then a box arrives for her in the post and inside, wrapped up in tissue paper, are two little Japanese dolls. A slip of paper says their names are Miss Happiness and Miss Flower. Nona thinks that they must feel lonely too, so far away from home. Then Nona has an idea – she will build her dolls the perfect house! It will be just like a Japanese home in every way. It will even have a tiny Japanese garden. And as she begins to make Miss Happiness and Miss Flower happy, Nona finds that she is happier too.
When toys need a little (or a lot of!) TLC, they head to the Doll Hospital in this endearing picture book in the tradition of Doc McStuffins. Don’t worry, toys, Dr. Pegs will have you feeling better in no time! It’s a quiet morning at the Doll Hospital until… DING-A-LING-A-LING! The emergency bells ring! Here comes a patient who needs Dr. Pegs’s help. Dr. Pegs is about to get to work when… DING-A-LING-A-LING! Here comes another patient! And another! How will Dr. Pegs take care of them all? Looks like the doctor needs some help herself!
This is the story of and old-fashioned porcelain doll, loved by many little girls over several generations. This doll is now very old and fragile, but also very wise.
Sweet Little Knits for Kids and Their Dolls Little ones love to dress just like their favorite dolls or stuffed animals. In Just Like Me Knits, Brandy Fortune shows you how to create nineteen modern projects for children, with nineteen matching projects for 15-to-18-inch toy figures, perfect for Bamboletta and other popular dolls. Knit everyday favorites such as a striped raglan sweater for an adventurous boy to run around in; fancy dress-up clothes, including a princess ballerina wrap; and accessories like the irresistible lace socks that can be made to fit mom, child, or doll. As the parent of two young, energetic girls and cofounder of the popular children’s magazine Petit Purls, Brandy Fortune is a practical knitter. She keeps the projects in this book simple and fast, making them accessible for busy beginners yet interesting enough for more experienced knitters. You’ll find everything you need to start knitting right away, including: • sizing, measuring, and customization help for creating children’s clothes • nineteen easy-to-follow patterns for garments and accessories for girls and boys age 3 through 10 • a short guide to hand-sewing basic doll clothes, with five original patterns to create complete outfits for any doll or toy • a quick primer on knitting techniques and resources The only thing that can make a handknit garment for a child even more special is a matching one for his or her huggable friend. You’ll love making these adorable projects for the children in your life, and they’ll love to help choose what they and their favorite dolls will wear.
