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The Dandy Dollhouse Stories: The Mexican Dollhouse (The Dandy Dollhouse Stories, 3)

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"The Dandy Dollhouse Stories: The Mexican Dollhouse" is one of the few books written about Mexican/Spanish style dollhouses. This story is inspired by the actual dollhouse that the author had built for her daughter while they were living in Mexico in the early 1950's. However, the story is more about accepting people from other cultures then about the dollhouse. Not surprisingly, the story is set in the mid-1950's, as Nancy has recently recovered from a chilhood bout of polio. Nancy's dollhouse and its dollhouse family, the Dandys, helped get her through a difficult time of recovery. In this third book in The Dandy Dollhouse series, the focus is on a new girl and the problems she must overcome.

The new girl at Nancy and Katie's school is from Mexico. Her name is "Rosalinda Chavez", she dresses in traditional Mexican clothes and is still learning English. Nancy knows what it is like to be teased because of her polio and the leg brace she had to wear, so she and her friend, Katie, offer their friendship to Rosalinda.In a world of prejudice and racial suspicion, the girls find that they have something in common with Rosalinda. She has a wonderful dollhouse! The reader learns something about Mexican families through the "living" dollhouse family in the Mexican dollhouse.

The most valuable lesson this book teaches, though, is the lesson of friendship. Friendship is not always easy, but that doesn't mean that one should not reach out to others who may be different. In this multi-cultural world, it may be less rare to see diversity, but reading this book may gently bring up the topic of prejudice and stereotypes. It offers a role model of three girls and their dollhouse families who do the right thing when it isn't the popular thing to do.