Last June I told you about wanting a living Kasperle when I was five years of age.
It seems I have a thing for living dolls unless they are named Chucky (I have never watched that film).
Lisa-Marie Blum had
studied art and graphic design in Berlin where she lived with her
husband who was also artist and graphic designer. When they lost
everything in the war, they moved back to where Blum had been born and
later to Hamburg where she became a children's book author and
illustrator, but also published poetry and prose.
This book, first published in 1960, tells the story of a lovable living doll, Finchen.
Finchen is more 70 years old. She has been Ina's doll for five years, but before that he belonged to her grandmother Gabriele.
Although she complains about her old-fashioned name Wilhelmine-Josefine, Ina tells her nothing about her is old-fashioned. She has new arms, new legs, a new dress, even new hair which looks like a blowball.
Only her wooden head with the bright blue eyes is still old and knows so many stories.
One of them is about the time Gabriele and she went to the harbor. Leaning over to see the galley of a fishing cutter, Finchen fell on the deck and the cabin boy told Gabriele to get down and get her back herself. Then the fisherman showed her all around, so when leaving in a hurry - we learn later that her uncle had come to visit - Gabriele forgot Finchen and the cabin boy only found her when the cutter was already at sea.
That's how Finchen met the "Klabautermann" (a good-natured ship's goblin who can also be mischievous like all goblins). He gave her a pink shell belonging to another doll, "Blauer Mohn" (Blue Poppy), and told her she needed it to come to life again.
The fisherman sent Finchen home in a parcel where - Klabautermänner know these things - Blauer Mohn had been the gift Gabriele's uncle had brought her from South America, and indeed a shell was missing from her necklace.
Finchen, however, became sick before she had a chance to give her the shell, and when she was well again, Blauer Mohn had gone. She had been sent to someone who wanted to draw her and write a book about her before giving her to a museum.
So the search for Blauer Mohn begins at the local museum where Ina meets Stefan who invites her to come play with his model train. At his place they meet Nora, the landlady's niece.
Finchen invites the two children over promising to tell them the story of Blauer Mohn, too.
When they come home, Ina's father, an anthropologist, has returned from his trip to South America and destiny has it that he has brought a picture of the girl Schneeblüte and her doll. It's Blauer Mohn!
But if she's in South America, how will they return the shell to her?
The next day, the children go to the river and swim in a little cove. Finchen is resting under a little tent Stefan has made for her when suddenly a seagull lands next to her carrying the Klabautermann! He's angry when he hears that Finchen still has the shell, but luckily she has secretly brought it along.
The Klabautermann says he'll give it to his friend who's also an anthropologist and who'll travel there. And because kobolds know these things - had I mentioned that before? - he can tell her exactly what will happen and Finchen can pass the story on to her friends.
How his friend will travel on the river with a canoe, how everyone in the villages along the river already knows that he's bringing the shell to Schneeblüte. How he comes to the village and an old woman attaches the shell on the necklace and then ...
"Blauer Mohn feels the shell, breathes, moves her beautiful head, and raises her hand towards the stranger".
I loved that part as a child. There's nothing like a happy ending, right?
Actually, the book wasn't mine. It belonged to my sister and I bought my own copy many years later at a fleamarket. When I asked her if she remembered when she got hers, she had a look because in those days we often put our name, address, age, sometimes even the class we were in in books. Not in this case, it only had her name.
After a short pause she asked me about the illustrations in my copy and I said they were black and white. Hers weren't.
She hadn't remembered that she had colored most of them with crayons or felt-tip pens and, for extra artistic flair no doubt, also had added patterns to some of the pictures, for example on the bedding or on clothing.
What confused us a little was that there were notes on a few of the pictures which looked like school marks to us (we don't have letters here, but numbers ... 1 is the best, 6 the worst). We have no idea what the N. after the 1 could mean, though.
These are the little surprises I love so much about old books. You'll never know what you find!
What I also liked was the publisher's note at the end.
It explains how many people are involved until a book makes it into a child's hands - papermakers, illustrators, graphic designers, printers, and booksellers, but also the men (remember, it's 1960!) from the postal service and the railway - but that not all names can be listed except the author and the publisher.
It goes on to invite the children to write to the author at the publisher's address and tell her what they liked, but also where they would have done something differently. Isn't it nice that they encourage them to say their honest opinion?
They also promise more or less that the author will answer and send a real autograph.
It makes you wonder how many letters Lisa-Marie Blum got, doesn't it?
Have you ever written to an author?
