A fanciful story incorporating a clay doll and her visits to various "lands"- paper-land, nut-land, wood-land, flower-land. All of the inhabitants and props and houses were made by two real children and there are even pages of instructions for making your own. This was how children played in 1916 when the book was published!
The dedication makes me think that it was some little girl, who in her playtime with her dolls, came up with Dr. Squash, the doll doctor. And the story reads very much like the way a child would play.
The dolls have all sorts of ailments, (the teddy bear gets a nose bleed, the fireman doll needs a splint, the Indian doll fell off his horse into poison ivy, and the poor clown doll has 4 contagious diseases!). Each time he's called, Doctor Squash comes running and gives them the appropriate treatment. Then when Doctor Squash himself falls ill, the dolls all do their best to take care of him.
We just love sweet and winsome books like this! (No surprise it's by Margaret Wise Brown). If J.P. Miller's illustrations look familiar, it's because he worked for Disney and illustrated many Little Golden Books. Here's a really interesting bit about him!
This was a book that I had when I was little. I picked up this copy several years ago from a friend of mine who owns a wonderful antique shop called The Nest. As a child I loved this book because I loved that the little girl was so attached to her homemade simple doll. (Now I also wonder if the story is a subtle critique of colonialism!).
We first read this story in a book collection of Children's literature. Madeleine loved it. Egielski's pictures are perfect for telling the story of a family of tub people (little wooden bath toys) who played ship with the soap and had water races during bath time. One night a terrible thing happens, the little tub child gets sucked down the drain! Eventually he is rescued by a plumber and the tub people are lined up on a bedroom windowsill instead of the tub. Now they can play mountain climbing on the bunched up quilt!
Last time I was at the thrift store I found The Tub Grandfather. I had no idea there were other Tub People books! In the first book, the list of characters includes a mother, father, child, grandmother, policeman and doctor. In this story, the missing grandfather is accidentally found underneath the bedroom radiator. Covered in dust and with only one eye, he doesn't respond to his excited family at first. They even try to jog his memory by showing him the infamous tub. It's not till the grandmother dances with him on the rug that he remembers his love for her and is part of the family once more.
