The Doll People by Ann M. Martin

Rating: 8 of 10 stars

Stories of dolls that have secret lives are legion. While such books range from the tender to the spooky, Ann M. Martin's The Doll People is the first in which two different doll cultures are thrown into contrast.

Annabelle Doll and her family have lived in a traditional Victorian dollhouse which has belonged to the same human family for the last hundred years. Annabelle herself is eight, and has been for all that time. An adventurer, she has begun to search for clues to the disappearance of her Aunt Sarah. While exploring, Annabelle chafes at the constraints imposed by her family in order to maintain their safety while living in close proximity to humans. If a Doll is spotted moving about by a human, he or she immediately goes into The Doll State which renders her motionless for twenty-four hours. From the Doll family's point of view, Annabelle's exploration and daring is highly dangerous, risking The Permanent Doll State, from which there is no recovery.

Then the plastic Funcraft family arrives next door with their snap-on plastic clothes and their pink plastic house and modern conveniences (TV, microwave oven) unknown to the Dolls. They also have a world perspective quite different from that of the Doll family. Tiffany Funcraft, like the rest of her family, is loud, irrepressible and dedicated to mystery-solving as an avid fan of Nancy Drew mysteries. She and Annabelle become soul-mates right away.

Despite the culture clash, the two families are forced to team up to solve the mystery of where Annabelle's Aunt Sarah has gone when she disappeared suddenly, all of forty-five years ago.

What luck that this charming story has been enlivened by Brian Selznick's wonderful pencil drawings. If you have a hardcover version, you'll be treated to his work in many unusual areas--endpapers, page borders, and under the jacket, to name a few. Not to be missed.


There are two sequels, The Meanest Doll in the World, and The Runaway Dolls.

Usual Borrowers: Third grade and up
Genres: Adventure, fantasy, humor, mystery