House of Dolls

by Francesca Lia Block, Barbara McClintock (Illustrator)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061997365
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/01/2010
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	80
Lexile:	NC1010L (what's this?)
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

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.

Editorial Reviews

Powerful, haunting, and—just when you don’t think it’s possible—inspiring, too.” — Booklist (starred review)

“An emotionally resonant surprise.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Mesmerizing in its strange romantic intensity.” — Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

From the Publisher

Mesmerizing in its strange romantic intensity.

Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Powerful, haunting, and—just when you don’t think it’s possible—inspiring, too.

Booklist (starred review)

Mesmerizing in its strange romantic intensity.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"Powerful, haunting, and—just when you don’t think it’s possible—inspiring, too."

Booklist

Mesmerizing in its strange romantic intensity.

The Bulletin for the Center for Children's Books

Madison Blackberry is bored, despite the beguiling charms of her dollhouse, complete with its sentient inhabitants Rockstar (a mousy doll, ironically named), Wildflower (a celluloid doll whose boyfriend Guy is a "dark-skinned plastic doll in army fatigues") and the lavender-eyed, dress-designing fairy Miss Selene. The dolls' cozy family life is essentially a deliciously described dress-up tea party, and Madison-largely ignored by preoccupied parents-is jealous. "The combination of boredom and jealousy is a dangerous thing," and Madison maliciously takes away what her dolls love best, including Guy, whom she "sends off to war." Themes of war, loss, loneliness and love deepen the story's more fanciful aspects, accentuated by McClintock's delicately etched pen-and-ink illustrations of luxurious interiors and frilly gowns. Love redeems all when Madison gets some long-overdue attention from her grandmother and finds it in her heart to make peace with the dolls. Experiencing Block's atypical storybook is like peering into an ornate sugar egg and seeing tiny sad people and soldiers inside instead of pink frosted bunnies. An emotionally resonant surprise. (Doll fantasy. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews