Reviews

Monday, 01 October 2012 19:37

Pretty Dolls by Kimberly Dana Featured

Written by
Rate this item
(0 votes)
Pretty Dolls
By Kimberly Dana
Paperback
Publisher: Tate Pub & Enterprises Llc 2011-11-15 (2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1613464169
ISBN-13: 978-1613464168
ASIN: B0071GK7L8

Pretty Dolls by Kimberly Dana, a finalist in the Children’s Picture Book category at the 2011 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest, is a delightful story about overcoming jealousy and the love a girl can share with her special doll, no matter what she looks like.

Little Tasha has several dolls, but her favorites are Emily-Nicole and Gracie.

Emily-Nicole is the most beautiful of all, with porcelain skin, silky red hair and turquoise-blue eyes. She spends most of her days perched on the top bookshelf case with the other beautiful dolls.

Unlike Emily-Nicole, Gracie has tufts of brown hair (from when Tasha played hairdresser), purple eyes (from when she played artist), and a missing arm. She’s not at all beautiful like Emily-Nicole. But Tasha loves her because she’s the snuggliest of all and that’s why she always carries her around.
Unbeknown to Tasha, once she’s deeply sound asleep in the quiet of the night, Emily-Nicole, jealous of Tasha and Gracie’s closeness, starts making fun of Gracie and calling her cruel names. The other pretty dolls giggle and together they mock:

Pretty eyes and pretty hair. We’re the best dolls anywhere. If you were a pretty doll, you’d be up here standing tall.

Night after night the banter continues. As Emily-Nicole becomes more and more jealous, she turns increasingly cruel. Her heart becomes just as cold and porcelain-like as her beautiful face. Deep inside, though, she suffers. She would like to be the one to snuggle up with Tasha instead of standing on the shelf all day and night. She just can’t understand why Tasha prefers Gracie when Gracie is so ugly compared to her.

One day, Tasha’s dog Victor charges into the room and rocks the bookshelf back and forth, making Emily-Nicole stumble and fall. He snatches her into his mouth and shakes her, then heaves her into the air and she lands on Tasha’s bed… right next to Gracie. Will the other dolls help Emily-Nicole or will Gracie?

 Pretty Dolls is an adorable picture book for little girls ages 3 to 8. It is a story about kindness and discovering new friendships. The book offers a valuable and lovely message about what it means to be truly beautiful and about accepting others, even if they look a little different than us. The language is simple and engaging, appropriate for this age group. The illustrations are charming, a splash of color on the pages with a lot of pinks and purples. There’s an accompanying audio book included with Pretty Dolls, which can be downloaded for free from the publisher’s website at www.tatepublishing.com and burned onto a CD or saved to a portable device such as an iPod. Recommended.

Author Kimberly Dana is an award-winning English teacher. In addition to writing for children, she also writes for young adults. You can visit her at www.kimberlydana.com.

Reviewed by Mayra Calvani (www.MayraCalvani.com)
February 2012

Read 951 times Last modified on Thursday, 11 November 2021 19:59

Comments powered by CComment

Latest Posts

  • Sakshi
    I have been in a state of ‘emotional unwell-being’ for seven years. There, I’ve said it. Why? Well, after my father died, I believed that if I reached out with love to ‘good friends’, counsellors, suitors, and relatives, there could be pockets of joy to offset my grief and loneliness,…
  • The Creative Industry Needs to Look at Things Differently Post Budget 2022
    On 29 October 2021, the Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Tengku Zafrul Tengku Abdul Aziz tabled Budget 2022 in the Malaysian parliament. RM50 million has been allocated for the arts and culture industry. This comes after a year and a half after the entire industry came to an absolute standstill. With…
  • ‘The Covid Positives’ – life lessons learnt from the pandemic by Phanindra Ivatury
    After a long drawn battle with the biggest catastrophe in our living memory, global humanity is finally getting to see some quintessential ray of light at the end of the treacherous tunnel in the form of COVID-19 vaccines, currently being rolled out to all parts of the globe. A ‘COVID-19…
  • Chaos of Whole Books
    Is it possible to read several books at once? Aneeta Sundararaj finds out. When I was a child, my cousin used to boast that he could read four storybooks at a time. As an adult, when he invested in an e-Reader, he continued to boast that he could…
  • Writing for You? Or for Me?
    Writing for You? Or for Me? ‘You must always write with your reader in mind.’ This was one of the first pieces of advice that I received when I began my writing career. Honestly, I found this extremely hard to do because more often than not, I couldn’t picture my…