Amazon.com Review
Following the "life" of a wooden doll may seem like a strangely passive way of learning American history, but it turns out to be a remarkably gripping approach. In the course of her first hundred years, the peddler-carved doll Hitty travels from Boston to India, is abandoned for years in an attic, is shipwrecked in the South Seas, meets President Abe Lincoln, and at one point lives with a snake charmer. Seen through her hand-painted eyes, the 19th-century world is a miraculous and usually wonderful place, with some mysteries never to be fathomed. Rachel Fields wrote this Newbery Medal-winner in 1929; 70 years later Rosemary Wells and Susan Jeffers did what to some is the unthinkable: they adapted the classic. In their defense, they did a gorgeous job and did in fact give
Hitty a much-needed new lease on life. As Wells says in her note to the reader, "no one I spoke to had actually read
Hitty in at least thirty years, and that seemed a real shame."
Of course, as in any adaptation, something of the original is lost. Wells even makes a few significant changes to the story. But purists take note: Wells has the utmost respect for the importance of Hitty, and Susan Jeffers's richly imagined illustrations are definitely worthy of this classic. Don't let another hundred years slip by without reading this gem! (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter
From Publishers Weekly
Field's 1930 Newbery Medal-winning classic about a doll with a taste for adventure gets resized, relocated and redecorated in this handsome storybook adaptation. As in Field's version, this Hitty begins her memoirs in 1829 Maine as an old peddler carves her out of a piece of mountain ash from Kilkenny, Ireland. Mountain-ash wood, Hitty confides, is said to bring luck and to have "power against mischief"; indeed, as Hitty travels from owner to owner, she emerges from some precarious spots (a shipwreck in the South Seas, a gutter in Bombay). Wells adjusts the prose for '90s sensibilities (e.g., there are no longer any "heathens" or "savages," and whaling is said to "seem cruel and heartless, [but] at the time it was necessary. She parts company with Field altogether in creating different adventures for Hitty: her Hitty goes South during the Civil War, crosses paths with a freed slave and, many episodes later, ends up not in a shop, awaiting new destinations (as in the original), but as the prize possession of that former slave's granddaughter. Jeffers (who with Wells reprised Lassie Come Home) will surely captivate readers of all ages with her lustrous color art. Loosely reminiscent of early-20th-century illustrators like Jessie Willcox Smith, Jeffers's paintings have an appropriately nostalgic feel. The large trim size, elegant design and a layout that offers illustrations on every page add to a volume that is as charming as its subject. Ages 6-12. (Oct.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
