Reviews for Raggedy Ann Stories

The average rating for Raggedy Ann Stories based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-12-05 00:00:00 Lucas Film I found Raggedy Ann Stories at Project Gutenberg quite some time ago but never took the time to read the book until now. Not that I was worried about warping childhood memories; I just forgot about it until recently when I was tidying up my lists for 2016. I do have lovely memories of Raggedy Ann. She was my favorite doll when I was a child, the only doll I carried with me everywhere. I vaguely remember reading the stories, or at least hearing them, but I didn't remember enough details to spoil the reading now. And I loved the illustrations in the Gutenberg edition. Take a peek for yourself here: We meet Raggedy Ann when little Marcella is playing at her Grandmother's house and discovers the doll in a barrel in a dark corner up in the attic. Grandmother very graciously mends a few raggedy places and presents Ann to Marcella. She has been in the attic for 50 years, so has old-fashioned clothes and a funny painted-on face, but she quickly becomes Marcella's favorite doll. And Marcella had a lot of dolls. I remembered some of them: the French doll, the Dutch doll, the Scotch doll. I liked animal toys better myself, so I was never jealous of how many dolls this little girl had and now as an adult all I can say is Why So Many?! Anyway, each short chapter relates a different adventure that Raggedy Ann has, because of course she and the other dolls all come to life when no one is around. They all sneak into the pantry and eat lots of treats, they go rescue Fido the puppy from the dog pound, they go out to the barn and convince Mamma Cat to take her three kittens into the nursery so Marcella can play with them. These were active toys! And through it all, even when she gets washed by accident in a wringer washer and becomes flat as a pancake, Raggedy Ann is always smiling. She is just so cute, it makes me happy even now to see her face. The only time she lost her temper was when a mouse came into the nursery one night and ate the wax face off of a new doll that had just arrived. That chapter was a bit creepy, but Raggedy Ann and the cat (a new one, not one of the three from the barn...they were never mentioned again for some reason) save the day for everyone in more ways than one. In the last chapter, Raggedy Ann is very brave when she is taken off to what turns out to be a factory. She is taken apart and copied for a pattern, then put back together and returned to Marcella. She tells the other dolls all about it, and how she now has thousands of sisters just like herself....in other words she was cloned! That would be frightening to any other doll, but Raggedy Ann was excited about all the little girls that would now get to have a special friend. She was always excited and happy about life in general, and the lessons in this charming little book are obvious but are gently told. I am off to read about Raggedy Andy now. I had an Andy doll also, but he was never as much of a pal as Raggedy Ann was. I am curious to learn his background, since I really don't have any memories of how he showed up. He was just there one day. Maybe the Fairies brought him the way they brought Marcella's little brother in one odd chapter of this book? We shall see!

Review # 2 was written on 2011-01-18 00:00:00 Kris Olsen Childhood classics are always dicey things. Sometimes they age better than others. Raggedy Ann falls somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, I think. I mean, let's get this out of the way: Raggedy's mistress, Marcella, is a spoiled little upper-class white girl, complete with a stereotype of a black servant called Dinah. It was fine in 1918 I'm sure, but it's a bit more outmoded now than, say, the adventures of Peter Rabbit (who slightly predates Raggedy). Raggedy herself is implausibly sweet and patient and universally beloved by all who meet her, and would frankly make Pollyanna look downright pessimistic. All the same, I can't help feeling a sense of nostalgia as I read these stories to my daughter. And though Raggedy Ann might be overly sweet, she's sweet in a way that I find endearing rather than obnoxious. Marcella might be spoiled, but Raggedy provides a much better example as she thinks through problems, owns up to her mistakes, treats others kindly and helps those in need. Her adventures are varied and inventive, whimsical without entirely losing a sense of realism. (Um. With the possible exception of the story where Marcella's new baby brother is delivered. By fairies, who fly him in through the nursery window. Sigh.) Speaking of realism: One thing I found particularly interesting was the way Raggedy Ann acts in most of the stories. She is, of course, of the "the toys are secretly alive" genre, and sometimes that means that she and the other dolls get up and walk and talk and have adventures. Just as often, though, she acts like a perfectly normal rag dolly who goes through the same things that other dolls might. In other stories where toys come alive, I often have the sense that the human world isn't really that real, that it's an obstacle for the toys to overcome. That isn't the case here; the world of living toys and the world of the people who play with them are neatly balanced, with adventures happening in both spheres. Somehow it gives me a better sense of the toys needing their mistress (and the other humans) than all the "Ohmygod Andy might get rid of us!" freakouts in the Toy Story movies.