william wants a doll

another one of my favorite childhood books is the best-loved doll by rebecca caudill.  i tried taking photos of the cover of my copy, but it is so faded and torn that the photos were terrible.  my version has a pink cover, which i think may be the original cover from the early 1960s.

it's the story of a little girl who is invited to a birthday party where each child is invited to bring a doll and prizes will be awarded for categories such as "best-dressed" and "oldest" doll.  the main girl decides that she will bring her favorite doll, one that is not particularly old yet has matted hair and and patched cheeks from constant play.

i love to go back and re-read the books i loved as a child.  even though i read these books hundreds of times, i always notice details i didn't as a girl (like the simple smiley faces on the girls). 

i like that i was exposed to both traditional girly influences along with '70s progressive influences such as the free to be you and me record, where it's the boys playing with dolls and the girls who want to be athletes and firefighters. (can anyone else still sing every song from this album?)  it's interesting how when reading the best-loved doll i never thought to myself, "wow!  this book is really girly!" and yet i do remember thinking after listening to the song "william's doll" that it shouldn't be a big deal for william's parents to buy him a doll, even if he defies the lyrics of the song and decides not to be a father.

Comments

[gracia]

I loved that particular book, too... g xo

[oldround]

I'd forgotten about that book. Not even 100%sure I had it, or read it, except for the certain feeling that I have spent a lot of time poring over the picture of the dolls on the couch and the girls with their dolls! Thanks for returning the memory.

[A Fanciful Twist]

Where does time go??? I blink and boom, missed a couple posts!! I LIKE your bathroom!!!!!! Alot actually!!!

And this book... Just dreamy!! I can see why you love it!!

[cruststation]

So wonderful to go on a nostalgic journey, I would love to re-read my old books too. I know what you mean about missing details when you're young...

[lisa s]

those illustrations are amazing....
and i love the bathrooms below :)

a box is going out to you today!!

[ysolda]

Ooh I had this too, I loved it! Although the doll I really wanted was the one with the sewing machine.

[stephanie]

I have a couple of favorite books, they were my mothers I think....Penelope, a little girl that travels to visit her great aunt who lives in a huge amazing house. The details of her train ride...unwrapping the little chocolates her mother packed for her. I must run and find that book and read it again....

[Dees]

Soooo lovely!!you know how I feel about childrensbooks.I love this!!!thank you so much for sharing and please keep it coming!!xoxo

[julie]

So lovely to see these old illustrations. Its great that you kept them. xxx

[mom]

THANK YOU! THANK YOU!!!!!!
I really love reading your blog and am always totally amazed by your comments. A parent is never sure what impact they have on the children they raise (or the children who raise them)
Love you and your wonderful mind
Mom

[Kevin]

Hi. I was just thinking of my sister, remembering her love for Free to Be... and, after looking it up and finding your link here, I find that even I remember most of William's Doll :-) I was, hmmm... 11. I don't remember much of the rest of the album, so something about that one song must have touched me, though I don't remember ever wanting a doll. Either that or I heard it an awful lot by virtue of Peggy's love for it. We only had the one record player... Anyway, I read your comments on the song and you are cetainly right, it shouldn't have been a big deal, but it WAS. That album came out when the idea that it might be ok for a boy to want a doll was pretty new. GI Joe had been around a while, but you'd hardly call him a doll - and its not what William meant either. I had some stuffed toy animals and I think thats about the closest most boys my age got to dolls - maybe, for some, because thats as close as they were allowed to get - and those wouldn't have done for William either. (We didn't "tend" them. We attacked the other the other kid's animal with them and threw them at eachother.) My younger brother (William's age) had more variety in his choice of action figures and other toys, but still nothing that would have satisfied William. I remember the teasing voices of other children in the song, but I never even knew a boy who wanted a doll - or at least I never knew a boy who said he wanted one. Until that album came out it hadn't occured to me that a boy COULD want a doll. Now, cut me a break - I was only 11. We were not isolated in any sense of the word. Raised by lower income parents, in Philadelphia and northern Delaware, who were separated off and on from 1968 until they finally divorced the year after that album came out. They weren't Sonny and Cher but they weren't Mr. & Mrs. Billy Graham either. (Thats a reference to conservative opinion, not to religious leaning.) Remember that the parents in the song would have been raised in the late forties and early fifties. If the boys I grew up with didn't have dolls, our fathers SURE didn't have them and I doubt a boy from those days would have asked for one more than once... Their fathers, maybe even their mothers - William's Grandma - would have squashed the idea like a bug. Grandmas are notorious for being more open minded with their grandchildren than they were with their own children. (And thank God for the progress they contribute.) Anyway, theres my 2 cents. Thanks for your page and for the link. I'm sending it over to my sister, who raised 3 boys who I'd bet know all the words to every song on that album and who all had Cabbage Patch dolls.
-Kevin