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Summary
Summary
When Doc the bear arrives at the dump from his former home in a children's hospital, he's not sure what kind of life awaits him. But the friends he finds there are determined to make his new home a welcoming one. In the gentle, classic style of The Velveteen Rabbit, the toys discover what it's like to live on their own.
Julian Fellowes's witty text and S. D. Schindler's lovely, intricate art combine to make a beautiful gift book, sure to strike a chord with any child--or adult--who has ever loved a stuffed toy.
Author Notes
JULIAN FELLOWES is an actor,writer, director, and producer.His script for Gosford Park was awarded an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, and his novel, Snobs, was a bestseller on both continents.Most recently, he wrote the book of the stage musical Mary Poppins .
S. D. SCHINDLER has illustrated many books for children, including Whittington (aNewbery Honor book) and Don't Fidget a Feather (an ALA Notable Book). He lives in Philadelphia.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Fellowes, a British actor, director, producer and Oscar-winning screenplay writer (for Gosford Park), presents a leisurely paced story, noteworthy for its polished delivery of a familiar theme-the afterlife of the discarded or lost toy. For years Doc, a teddy bear accessorized with a stethoscope, has comforted children in a hospital dayroom. His generosity of spirit makes him chief among "what the nurses referred to as the `cuddly toys,' although there was an element of impertinence in this which most of the occupants of the [toy] basket found rather irritating." But after the hospital hastily spruces up the dayroom in preparation for a much-publicized royal visit, Doc winds up at a dump, grateful to have escaped a worse fate. The rest of the plot revolves around Doc's adventures with his new friends, also toys separated from children and coping with their diminished status in various recognizably human ways. All rally when a threadbare stuffed rabbit arrives, inadvertently tossed into the trash instead of put into the van when his owner's family moves to a new house, and together the toys come up with a risky scheme to reunite rabbit and boy. Schindler's (Don't Fidget a Feather) full-page ink-and-watercolor illustrations and his line art match the old-fashioned storytelling mood: he renders the toys and the settings with fine detail, using a realistic style to bridge the fantastic elements in the narrative. The abundance and richness of the pictures enhance this title's attractiveness as a read-aloud, as does the elevated vocabulary-the book offers a rare combination of the soothing and stimulating. Ages 4-up. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* When the dayroom of the children's ward at Deerhurst Hospital is renovated in preparation for a royal visitor, Doc the bear and the other longtime toy residents find out that newer, shinier toys will be replacing them. Discarded and disheartened, Doc ends up in the junkyard, where he meets toy bears Humphrey and Nell; the General, a stuffed owl; and Lady Cora, a porcelain doll whose bitterness masks heartbreak. Junkyard life is tough, but Doc and the others find friendship and purpose by aiding an injured blackbird and by helping an old toy rabbit, mistakenly thrown away, return to its owner. The adventures require teamwork and courage, but, ultimately, the toys discover they can assist and comfort those in need including one another. Some vocabulary may be too sophisticated for younger readers, but Fellowes exhibits a wonderful flair for both dialogue and characterization, and his descriptive narrative, touched with wit, echoes with the drama and poignancy of classic animal tales. Schindler's enchanting, intricate artwork, ranging from black-and-white spot art to full-page color pictures, sympathetically captures the characters' feelings of loss and rejection as well as their dignity, determination, and grace. A fine choice to open dialogue about facing adversity and the importance of compassion and community, this story is one that kids will read over and over again.--Rosenfeld, Shelle Copyright 2007 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
"THE ALL-I'LL-EVER-WANT CHRISTMAS DOLL" is a rich portrait of a poor black family in the midst of the Depression. Written by Patricia C. McKissack, the winner of numerous awards, and illustrated by the equally renowned Jerry Pinkney, it has the look, sound and feel of a classic. McKissack's direct and unfettered language partners beautifully with the vivid tones of Pinkney's pencil-and-watercolor illustrations. Inspired by a true story, "The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll" is an evocative book with a universal message. Nell, the middle daughter of three, tells the story of the Christmas she set her heart on a doll glimpsed in The Pittsburgh Courier, with which her family is repapering their walls in preparation for the oncoming winter. "Baby Betty is all I want ... ever," she announces to her sisters, who make fun of her for her unattainable desire. Nell has an authentic, blunt narrative voice of a girl we'd like to know. "I flat-out refused to give up my dream," she says, and without telling anyone writes her letter to "Santy Claus." She has already spent many nights imagining herself and Baby Betty playing together, and we think of her as basically good-hearted, so her selfishness on Christmas morning, when Baby Betty is miraculously presented to the girls, takes us by surprise, but makes her all the more convincing as a little girl. Nell refuses to share the doll with her sisters, who did not believe in her dream. They reluctantly agree that the doll is rightfully hers and go off to jump rope. But when Nell attempts to engage Baby Betty in the same games she's accustomed to playing with her lively sisters, she grows frustrated relying on her imagination to sustain them. Not until she invites her sisters to join in does she truly come to enjoy the new doll. No matter how much you love it, McKissack's story reminds us, an inanimate toy is no substitute for playmates. Play with me: Clockwise from top, illustrations from "The Curious Adventures of the Abandoned Toys," "The Toy Farmer" and "The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll." BUT don't tell that to Jed, in Andrew T. Pelletier's "Toy Farmer." When Jed discovers a toy farmer astride a bright red tractor "in the darkest back corner of the attic," his father reveals, with a wink and a "secret little smile," that it was his childhood plaything: "Craziest toy I ever had!" The first day Jed plays happily alone with his toy, suffering none of the frustration that beset Nell during her solitary play. When he wakes up the next morning, the toy has taken on a life of its own: the bedroom rug is now a field, and the farmer is busy tilling and weeding. Day by day the fantasy takes on new dimension and detail, with Jed looking on in awe. Eventually he is invited to participate by entering the farmer's enormous pumpkin in a contest - but when he rushes home to share his special award with the toy farmer, the wonderland has disappeared and his bedroom is simply his bedroom once again. The zany premise of "The Toy Farmer," with its energetic execution by the illustrator Scott Nash, requires that we, like Jed, fall under its spell. Most of us will be happy to go along. Jed, his father and all the "real" settings are rendered in soft-colored pencil and watercolor, while the fantastic elements that take over the bedroom are bold and bright, with the sharp edges of mechanical playthings of an earlier era. Aided by digital artwork, Nash renders the vines and vegetation as animated pipelike constructions and the people and animals, as well as the giant pumpkin, as vintage metal windup toys. Does Jed have a better imagination than McKissack's Nell? Why is he capable of finding pleasure in his solitary game? The appeal of this book is that it doesn't trouble to answer such literal-minded questions. When the fantasy ends, there is no reassuring hint that it was all just a dream. It was pure, if not simple, make-believe. "The Curious Adventures of the Abandoned Toys," by the English screenwriter, director and actor Julian Fellowes, asks for an even bigger stretch of the imagination, but one that feels more familiar. Like Margery Williams's "Velveteen Rabbit" or Kate DiCamillo's "Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane," Fellowes's book is told from a toy's point of view. Children who figure in such stories are merely part of the shadowy backdrop against which the toys' own tales evolve. Doc, a teddy bear who has lived in a children's hospital for most of his long life, undergoes a series of alarming adventures and then finds himself in a dump, home to a community of abandoned toys with its own rules of etiquette. When Doc inquires of a blue bear, "Where are you from?" he is politely admonished by another bear that "one isn't supposed to ask that question around here. If a toy wants to tell you how he or she wound up in a dustbin, all well and good, but you can't ask. Do you see?" Fellowes's formal style is delightfully complemented by S. D. Schindler's precise artwork; both the full-page color illustrations and the small line drawings are splendidly realistic. Schindler's stuffed animals are wonderfully tactile, with different textures and visible seams - making a sole porcelain doll look all the more peculiar in contrast. She is an odd mix of elements, with a thin fashion-doll frame but no visible joints, that nevertheless takes on fluid human poses. She is meant to be a diva, a toy of higher quality, but her oddly unconvincing appearance is distracting. "The Curious Adventures of the Abandoned Toys" exudes a classic English ambience; it might easily be found in the Banks's nursery in "Mary Poppins" (or the current Broadway version, at any rate, since Fellowes wrote its book). Also the writer of the Oscar-winning script for the film "Gosford Park," here Fellowes offers a story into which young readers can settle comfortably, filled with sympathetic characters and adventures. Both Fellowes's book, with its soothing illustrations, and Andrew T. Pelletier's wilder vision of make-believe are firmly rooted in the tradition of magical toy stories, where things have a life of their own. Patricia C. McKissak's affecting tale, on the other hand, reminds us of the overpowering joy a toy can bring to a child, and the greater pleasure of sharing it with beloved playmates. Krystyna Poray Goddu's most recent book is "Dollmakers and Their Stories: Women Who Changed the World of Play."
School Library Journal Review
Gr 1-4-Part one introduces Doc, a teddy bear who has spent a satisfying career comforting children at a hospital. When the dayroom is renovated, the much-worn bear is thrown away. Fortunately, workers save him from the jaws of the garbage truck, hanging him on the front grille as an ornament. When the truck arrives at the rubbish dump, Doc meets several other emotionally wounded toys making a new life together. In part two, Doc and his companions encounter a stuffed rabbit that has been mistakenly thrown out during a move and conspire to deliver him back to his boy. Endearing pen-and-ink spot illustrations and occasional full-color, full-page paintings accompany the somewhat lengthy text. The story has a gentle humor that evokes a timeless feel, but lacks the depth of another recent Velveteen Rabbit read-alike, Kate DiCamillo's The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane (Candlewick, 2006). While Fellowes's book is appropriate in subject matter for younger children, some of the vocabulary is a bit challenging (e.g., "-he received the first intimations of mortality"), and American readers may be confused by British references. In addition, the adventures end too abruptly. Despite these criticisms, Doc's story will appeal to those with a fondness for old-fashioned storybooks.-Jayne Damron, Farmington Community Library, MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
In a pair of cozy read-aloud tales, Doc, a worn plush bear discarded when his hospital's Children's Ward is spruced up, meets a quartet of like survivors in a dump, lends expert aid to reset a blackbird's dislocated wing and later pitches in to get a lost toy bunny back to its distraught boy. Fellowes, an award-winning screenwriter, tells the tales in an adult voice, combining sophisticated language--overhearing talk of the renovation gives Doc "intimations of mortality"--with a matter-of-fact tone, adding touches of humor (the toys take rides around town by tying themselves to the radiator grills of garbage trucks) and giving each of the toys a simple but distinct personality. Schindler's color and black-and-white scenes catch every detail with such exact delicacy that even piles of trash look fetching. Fellow author Shirley-Anne Lewis gets title-page credit for providing the "idea," but this joins a long chain of similar adventures, from The Velveteen Rabbit to Emily Jenkins's Toys Go Out (2006), illustrated by Paul Zelinsky. It should find a ready audience--of children, as well as parents--to cherish it. (Illustrated fiction. 8-10) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.