Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Zemach. Mommy, Buy Me a China Doll

Mommy, Buy Me a China Doll is a children's book by Harve and Margot Zemach, with art by Margot Zemach, published in 1966. It is available at the Internet Archive.

Here is a YouTube read-along:

The authors notes that the story is adapted from an Ozark folk song, and it is about trading: Eliza Lou wants a china doll, and her mother asks what they can trade for it: trade daddy's feather bed she says. Where will he sleep? In horsey bed. And horse? In sister's bed. She'll sleep in baby's bed, who'll sleep in kittens' bed, with kittens in the chicken coop, and chickens on the rocking chair, with grandma in the pig pen, and the pigs in my bed, and I will stay in mommy's lap, and so Eliza falls asleep in mommy's lap, dreaming about the china doll. It's an absolutely adorable story, and beautifully illustrated! And yes, it's told cumulatively!

I couldn't find an Ozark recording, but wow, listen to this performance by Arkansas folksinger Almeda Riddle as recorded by Alan Lomax. 

The words are not quite the same as in the book (here are the lyrics to her song): that's the power of folk tradition; I really like the circular version in the Zemach book, but I don't know if that is their own invention, or if there is a circular version of the folk song. At some point I need to go sleuthing and find out (Riddle's version is not circular).



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