The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll by Patricia C. McKissack

Pinkney’s watercolor illustrations are masterful, as always, capturing the emotions on the girls’ faces and filling in details of the family’s Depression-era world.Ĭontinuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long ( The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. The longer story is full of humorous dialogue and scenes of realistic family life showing the close bonds within the family. Nella finds that her sisters are more fun to play with than a silent doll, so she decides to share Baby Betty. The wise parents tell their daughters to sort it out for themselves, and they do: Nella claims the doll as her own, and the other sisters ignore her and continue to play together. On Christmas morning, the girls each receive a little bag of treats, but there is only one doll for all of them, leading to bickering and arguments. The middle sister, Nella, writes to Santa to ask for a Baby Betty doll, even though she knows there isn’t much chance of receiving her due to her family’s modest circumstances. McKissack and Pinkney join forces for their third collaborative effort in this story of three sisters who have to share one doll for Christmas during the Depression.

The All-I'll-Ever-Want Christmas Doll by Patricia C. McKissack