Anniranni and Mollymishi the Wild-Haired Doll

Kathy Corrigan is the journals editor at the OISE Press.

Mollymishi, a doll, careens down the hill in the back of a wagon pulled
by a dog chasing a cat while Annirani, a girl, searches for her all up
and down the steep hill. They find each other. Plot is relatively slight
in this story, in which the telling is everything—or should have been.
Lamm tries hard, with alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, puns, made-up words,
and a style that reminds one of Dylan Thomas on an off day, to make
language the real hero of this book, but her efforts at poetic prose
have mixed success. The book’s best line is its last, in which
Anniranni and Mollymishi leave the adventures of the outdoors to go
inside for “two helpings of peas and quiet.” There are other bright
spots: “daffodils dangled,” “small doll hand,” “Anniranni
ran.” But then there is “wee red wagon,” which is impossible to
say aloud twice and which appears no fewer than 19 times in the text.
Other expressions are equally irritating. Also, Lamm’s style is
inconsistent; she uses plain narrative sentences and bland,
nondescriptive terms as well as her jumble of stylistic devices, all to
tell a story that manages to be both confusing and repetitive.

Ohi’s fine paintings re-create an Edwardian New England of clapboard
houses and well-turned-out townsfolk, with understated expressions on
the girl and her doll. Unfortunately, the color reproduction has left
the artwork a bit muddied. The book is nicely designed, though with the
large drawings and the placement of the text combining to create a rich,
full feeling.