House of Dolls - Hardcover

Block, Francesca Lia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 006113094X ISBN 13: 9780061130946

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2010

Synopsis

In a little house from another time, with lace curtains in every window and paintings hung in gold doily frames, Wildflower, Rockstar, and Miss Selene live a warm and cozy life. They wear fancy dresses, bake play-dough cakes, and spend their days enjoying one another's company.

For the three dolls, life is small but good.

But life is not good for Madison Blackberry, the owner of the dollhouse. Her grandmother pays more attention to the dolls than to her. The dolls have one another, but she is lonely in her big, empty apartment.

Then one day, as things always do—even for dolls—everything changes.

This beautiful story from the acclaimed team of Francesca Lia Block, author of such novels as Weetzie Bat, and Barbara McClintock, author and illustrator of many picture books, including Adèle & Simon, brings to life the power of love, family, and friendship.

About this title

About the Authors

Francesca Lia Block, winner of the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award, is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling books, including Weetzie Bat; the book collections Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books and Roses and Bones: Myths, Tales, and Secrets; the illustrated novella House of Dolls; the vampire romance novel Pretty Dead; and the gothic werewolf novel The Frenzy. Her work is published around the world.

Barbara McClintock has written and illustrated many acclaimed books for young readers, including Adèle & Simon, an ALA Notable Book, a Children's Book Sense Pick, and a New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year, and Dahlia, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book. She lives in Windham, Connecticut.

From the Back Cover

In a little house from another time, with lace curtains in every window and paintings hung in gold doily frames, Wildflower, Rockstar, and Miss Selene live a warm and cozy life. They wear fancy dresses, bake play-dough cakes, and spend their days enjoying one another's company.

For the three dolls, life is small but good.

But life is not good for Madison Blackberry, the owner of the dollhouse. Her grandmother pays more attention to the dolls than to her. The dolls have one another, but she is lonely in her big, empty apartment.

Then one day, as things always do—even for dolls—everything changes.

This beautiful story from the acclaimed team of Francesca Lia Block, author of such novels as Weetzie Bat, and Barbara McClintock, author and illustrator of many picture books, including Adèle & Simon, brings to life the power of love, family, and friendship.

Reviews

Grade 5 Up—The gorgeous House of Dolls is home to Wildflower, Rockstar, and Miss Selene. It belonged originally to Madison Blackberry's grandmother. The dolls live small but contented lives, until spoiled, sullen, and emotionally neglected Madison takes out her frustrations on their world. Jealousy causes her to send the dolls' boyfriends (a soldier and a small teddy bear) off to war (a hidden shoebox) and then remove the beautiful dresses her grandmother made for them. The dolls slip into a genteel decline, until one of them writes a note to the grandmother, who figures out what is happening and fixes everything. An afternoon spent with her grandmother, plus a new dress, causes the child to return the boyfriends and the dresses and the baby doll she had evidently removed before the story starts, and suddenly both worlds are made right. Despite the fact that this is a story about a child and some dolls, it reads like a selection in a highbrow collection for adults. There are lessons to be learned here, but not necessarily by children, and, in the end, even McClintock's fine, exquisitely detailed illustrations and Block's lyrical language don't make this slight, wistful tale satisfying.—Mara Alpert, Los Angeles Public Library
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

*Starred Review* Grief, inhumanity, redemption, and several layers of metaphor—what heavy lifting Block does in just 80 pages! From the outside, this feels like just another dollhouse tale (which makes it work for younger readers): the book itself is just a few inches in either direction. McClintock’s illustrations are of the precious and timeless variety, and Block’s plot involves a touch of magic and plenty of pretty dresses. Yet the overall impact is tremendous. Young Madison is growing tired of her dollhouse and its residents: Wildflower, Rockstar, Miss Selene, and their boyfriends Guy (a G.I. Joe type) and B. Friend (a teddy bear). Increasingly abandoned by her mother, Madison begins exercising a capricious cruelty that starts by sending Guy off to war. Then B. Friend is pronounced MIA. Then all of the ladies’ gowns are stolen. The reality/unreality of any of this is a tightrope Block toes with precision—when necessary, readers will happily shield their eyes so as not to break the breathless artifice. What at first seems to be about the perennial war between familial generations is expanded into a message about the global forces of pride and avarice that plunge innocents into devastation. This is powerful, haunting, and—just when you don’t think it’s possible—inspiring, too. Grades 3-6. --Daniel Kraus

Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 006113094X
• ISBN 13: 9780061130946
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: McClintock Barbara
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 80