In case you've missed my other comments about Rumer Godden's childrens' books, here are the basics. I love her children's books just as much as her novels for adults. Godden has a knack for incorporating local culture, awkward and unappreciated people, and interesting plot with a lovely prose style. She is unafraid to have her characters behave naturally which means that a story's crisis points will often leave readers feeling very uncomfortable because they recognize the behavior so well and dread the consequences thereof. Godden also is good at avoiding the "nice" sentimentality which can pervade children's books. Her world is always very real.

This is one of those Godden books whose name I see come up repeatedly. There are many of Godden's familiar themes apparent both in the details of the children's self-appointed task and bonding and the idea of having to adapt to a foreign culture. However, what makes this story really spring alive is that we are allowed into Miss Happiness' and MIss Flower's thoughts and conversation. I believe they would say, "Honorable Miss Godden!"

Lovely children's book.

This book is like baby's first orientalist novel.

We all enjoyed this, including my boys (9 and 7). We read it as part of our study of Japan. I do love Rumer Godden; the boys recognized this was written by the same author as one of our favorite Christmas books (Holly and Ivy) just by the style, which pleased me immensely.

I felt that a book was needed to inspire my daughter on the wonders of playing with a doll's house. Now would be the perfect time for 'Miss Happiness and Miss Flower', I thought, Rumer Godden's children's book published in 1961; one of the most magical books there is on the subject of dolls and their houses.
The plot: a girl from India comes to a strange land to live with her aunt and cousins. Nona Fell is lonely in this chilly English village, and feels out of place.
But just then, she is given a set of Japanese dolls, to share with her spoilt cousin Belinda. The arrival of the dolls transforms her relationship with her environment and her relatives. The entire family, with the exception of Belinda, join together to help make a Japanese doll's house for the dolls, Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.... That is the story. To read my full review see my blog: http://www.mybookaffair.net/2013/03/m...

This is the simple and sweet story of Nona, an eight year old girl. She was born and raised in India by her father. (Her mother passed away.) Her father has sent her to England to live with relatives. She stays with an aunt, uncle, and three cousins. Despite the relatives mostly warm welcome, Nona is homesick and lonely. One day two dolls arrive. Nona feels the dolls must be lonely. As she researches and builds them a Japanese style home (with the help of her cousin), she also develops her place of belonging and sense of home.

There is also a nice back to school lesson where Nona feels that the girl that sits next to her is stuck up. Her aunt suggests that the girl may be shy. Nona doesn't think that could be the case, because she reasons she is the one that is shy. However once they start talking they quickly become good friends.

This is one of the most delightful-yet-deep books I've ever read. Cross-cultural issues and transitions, grief, friendship, familial love and tension, the beauty of creating and crafting, healing coming in unexpected ways. From what I've read about the author's own life and childhood, I would say this is semi-autobiographical.

About the dolls traveling from the US to the UK, the author wrote, "I do not think they had been asked if they wanted to come--dolls are not asked."

Then on the next page, she wrote, "Children are not asked either." And thus begins Nona's life in the UK after spending most of her formative years in India.

One of my very favorite all time childrens books. I think I read it a million times. I forgot the title for many years, and tried to find it again and again telling people the gist of the story... 'its about two dolls from japan that get their very own house...' and suffered many blank stares until I finally found it again in the late 90s by accident. It is (to me) such a sweet book.

A children's book by Rumer Godden. Entertaining, but somewhat dated.

I have always believed dolls have an interior life about which we can only guess. Probably true for stuffed toys as well, and perhaps a broad stroke works for all closely held and deeply loved physical items that keeps even one child calm and grounded for a moment gets that spark of inner life to assist in that important task.

Rumer Godden has a magical way of capturing these interior lives. My first love was A Doll's House, and from there she has so many sweet and dear books - not just built to train girls on being girls, but rather to help all children to better express and understand what is happening to them as they pop miraculously into this world, falling into it by unspeakable means, to people who may or may not be ready for you to be needy in their world, often only children themselves. A buddy to hold onto, to sleep with, to bury your face in is helpful. One who can sit by and listen, who doesn't care if they are dragged or held or smooshed is even better, because they love you that much.

Miss Happiness and Miss Flower (and Little Peach), help an entire family and school group understand each other, and another culture (Japanese).

All in all a very satisfying read. And packed up and being sent off to my one and only grandgirl, as she stands fiercely among my living large 7 grandsons.

Molto carino e dolce, è un viaggio alla riscoperta delle cose semplici e uniche. Una lettura veloce e calma che può mitigare il vostro umore

Books about people of any form of foreigner community coming to a 'homeland' that is not their home are never going to become culturally irrelevant. This is one such, and it's also a book I owned at an early age, which might explain my Japanophilia. Reading it as an adult is a kick in the guts, not least because some of Nona's alienating experiences - which few adult characters in this book take any ownership over or try to mitigate, aside from the bookshop owner - are pretty much reflected in those of immigrant and refugee kids for whom I have had responsibility for. These days we'd say, correctly, she had depression and an eating disorder. These experiences are also reflected in the constant misunderstandings I experienced when I moved back from Asia, not least because some of my body language and facial expressions were now seen as 'other' and inappropriate in a British setting. The first individual to take a personal interest in me and help me out was a Hakka businesswoman, BECAUSE of where I'd lived, reflecting the fact that I was now not really part of my mother culture any more but something stuck between worlds. The pushing-away of people who don't fit, and the automatic expectation that you will seamlessly merge back into your parent culture, hasn't changed. I guess some lessons must be repeated over and over until society gets the message.

Godden's story is timeless in many ways that seem to be related to portraying problems to highlight them. As a writer, she was never patronising enough to say 'and this is really bad' in her books, meaning that the sexism that allows Tom to give orders while the girls wheedle, the bigotry against brunettes - absolutely a thing in the past, still around in the 80s when I was born, still very much current with people who are, um, not well-educated - and the misunderstandings between people are shown, meaning we have to infer about meaning (which is... somewhat Japanese.) The actual Japanese cultural detail is interesting, and portrayed in a way that unlike in the Adeline Yen Mah book I just reviewed, doesn't feel like you're being beaten around the head. Some of it is wrong. Japanese girls' names most certainly do not all end in the suffix '-ko.' Some of it is outdated by the time of the book being written and published. Japanese homes in 1961 would not have had fireboxes in the floor, although the dolls' house is clearly a portrayal of a historical form of home and therefore it's appropriate (and I am also not clear on when, exactly, the novel is set: I think it might have been pre-WW2 if there is a girl being sent home from colonial India, in which case fireboxes absolutely still were a thing.)

A final thing: I'm fascinated by how this book being written relates to the end of Japan being perceived as That Country That Did All That Bad Stuff, and also the end of 'Made in Japan' as a mark of poor workmanship, but rather as a mark of quality, care and heritage. There's a dissertation there, if anyone cares to write it.