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Review of Yona Zeldis McDonough’s The Doll Shop Downstairs

2814250569_3f73b23338_antique-dollYona Zeldis McDonough’s The Doll Shop Downstairs (New York:  Puffin Books/Penguin, 2009).  120 pages.

In the middle-grade historical fiction chapter book The Doll Shop Downstairs, we meet the Breittlemann family of New York City.  When World War I breaks out, the parents’ doll repair business suffers because the United States won’t trade with Germany, so the Breittlemanns can’t get the doll parts that they need.  Sophie, Anna, and Trudie, the three daughters, worry about their parents.  Anna, the nine-year-old middle child, gets a wonderful idea:  the whole family can create new dolls from easily obtainable materials to make money.  Anna also starts keeping a journal and writing frequently.

Author Yona Zeldis McDonough tells the story from Anna’s point-of-view in first-person narration.  Young Anna learns how to control her emotions, cope with sibling rivalry, and solve problems.  Readers watch Anna mature.  She comforts her younger sister, forges compromises that satisfy all three girls, and stays calm when she must give up her favorite doll.  Anna earns the respect of her older sister Sophie and of their parents.  Anna gains self-confidence from her success.

The illustrations by Heather Maione capture the different personalities of the main characters and develop the historical time period with details of clothing, hair styles, furniture, and, of course, dolls.

This uplifting story will help children to deal with family tensions and to understand the world of the early twentieth century.

Photo by gailf548

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Janet Ruth Heller

I am the past president of the Michigan College English Association. I have a Ph.D. in English Language and Literature from the University of Chicago. I have published four poetry books: Nature's Olympics (Wipf and Stock, 2021), Exodus (WordTech Communications, 2014), Folk Concert: Changing Times (Anaphora Literary Press, 2012) and Traffic Stop (Finishing Line Press, 2011). My scholarly book, Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, and the Reader of Drama, was published in 1990 by the University of Missouri Press. My fiction picture book about bullying for children, How the Moon Regained Her Shape (Arbordale, 2006; 7th edn. 2022), has won four national awards. My play The Cell Phone won fourth place in a national contest and was performed twice at the Fenton Village Players One-Act Play Festival on June 24-25, 2011 in Fenton, Michigan. Triton College produced another play, Pledging, as part of its Tritonysia Play Festival in May 2017. Choeofpleirn Press published Pledging in Rushing Through the Dark (2022).

This Post Has One Comment

  1. Yvette Pompa May 17, 2015

    I look forward to reading this.

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