Miss Happiness and Miss Flower

As "Harry Potter" calls out to today's young bright outsiders looking for somewhere to truly belong, this book spoke to me. It mesmerised me as a little girl. As an USAF "brat" I very much understand Nona's ache and anger as the "weird" outsider. I fell in love with the dolls as well. Their "voices" sounded like two little doting "aunties" as they subtly manipulated Nona and Belinda into seeing past their differences and fears and into finding friendship. If only I had had such a wonderful pair of guardian angels of my own back then. Rumer does a great job of painting two total opposites of little girls with warmth and sympathy while never truly turning either into either a villian or a bad joke (way too rare). She showed that even our flaws can become strengths when they are accepted and we are willing to be loved. One thing that really grabbed me as a child was that the book included all the plans for the house and the furnishings the girls eventually build for their little foriegn guests. I spent hours pouring over the school library copy back then. I nearly wore it out. Now my girls will be able to indulge in the same pleasure without having to always be on the look out for the due date. This time we'll be building the Japanese doll house together.

I read Miss Happiness and Miss Flower more than 25 years ago, when I was in high school. That summer, the little girls I was babysitting were enchanted by the idea of building a doll house of their own. Every night for several weeks, they asked me to read and re-read their favorite parts of the book. Like the main character, Nona, they wanted to learn more about Japan, its customs, and traditions. The three of us spent hours in the public library doing research and building a house out of shoe boxes. We also talked about the bad behavior of the character Belinda, and discussed why she acted so mean. I never forgot the book and was delighted to find it again. I highly recommend this book.

Any childhood book written by Rumer Godden is sheer gold - Miss Happiness and Miss Flower and The Doll's House were both favorites of mine in elementary school.

I so loved this book when I was a little girl. When a random mention of the book brought me to Amazon with a rush of nostalgia, I was delighted to find it available for Kindle - there's nothing like instant gratification! ;-) So with one quick impulse buy, I found myself reliving a small piece of my childhood - and the story was just as lovely as I remembered it. Thanks Amazon!

Miss Happiness and Miss Flower was one of my very favorite books as a child, and the original edition rates five stars plus. I spent hours imagining building a Japanese dollshouse, and actually making some of the things Nona makes for her dolls. The paperback edition pictured, alas, deserves only four stars, because it leaves out a crucially important and wonderful part of the original book: the plans and instructions to build a Japanese dollshouse like the one built in the story. It is a perfectly delightful story, but part of what made the book so wonderful was the inclusion of the plans. I bought the paperback to give to my great-nieces, but I will now try to find them an edition that includes the house plans.

Such a sweet story that introduces Japanese culture to young children, and vividly captures that quaint, familiar imagination of playing with dolls. Simply lovely.

I remember reading this book at least three times as a child. Finding it one day in my grade school library in Boise, Idaho and thumbing through it and seeing the directions for building the house in the back. I have loved dolls, especially Barbie Dolls, since I was very young. So when I saw the directions to build a house that made the book even better. I have enjoyed rediscovering this book as an adult. Now I can build that little doll house myself! A great read at any age from 5 to 105!

Sweet story about a little girl adjusting to new surroundings and how helping others helped her too. Great for any child who is going thru the same thing. Also good for doll lovers of all ages, I am 62 years old and loved it.

This was a favourite book from my childhood, and I’m thrilled to have it again. Great service

主人公は日本人形のミス・ハピネス(原註に日本の一般的な名前でsatiとある)とミス・フラワー(原註はhano、たぶんhanaの意)、そしてイギリス人の少女、Nona。 Nonaは、南インドのコインバートルにある茶園から、一人でイギリスに来た8歳の女の子。 赤ちゃんのころに母が亡くなり、アヤ(乳母)に育てられていたせいか、いとこたちの家に預けられてもなじめずにいた。 あるクリスマスに大伯母からNonaの暮らす家にプレゼントが届く。 ルーマー・ゴッテンの他の物語と同じように、 人形であるミス・ハピネスとミス・フラワーには心があります。 日本人形、というとひく方もあるかもしれませんが、おきゃんなイメージです。 日本の習俗がちらほら出てきますので、取っつきやすく、Nonaの成長ぶりにはらはらしながらも楽しめます。

Read first as a child, I am now 70. I bought this for my grandchildren, but I doubt they will read it, which is sad. Rumer Godden is one of my favourite authors, her adult books are fascinating.

Eight-year-old Nona Fell has lived in India with her father (her mother is deceased) and elderly Indian nanny (nannies were called nurses then) all of her life, until suddenly she is sent to live with her aunt, uncle and cousins in England. 14-year-old Anne is the sensible one who plays piano, 11-year-old Tom is a keen carpenter, and seven-year-old Belinda is a spoilt little cow. Nona is desperately sad and homesick, and life in England is harsh and unforgiving; she is not used to English ways and her family are not used to her ways; she has lived a sheltered life by comparison. She is a very timid child with considerable social anxiety. Belinda being the youngest is used to being the centre of attention, so she resents her family having another girl as a guest. Nona is cheered up a bit when a package arrives in the post for her and her female cousins, in the form of two Japanese dolls whose names are Miss Happiness and Miss Flower - they are a gift from their great aunt Lucy in America. Belinda, being spoilt and typically Western, doesn't truly appreciate them, whereas Nona does, having lived in the East most of her life. She knows that Belinda's ordinary dolls' house won't do, and she's that Tom is into making things, so she sets about making a special Japanese house for the dolls. For this she does a lot of research. Over time, everyone she knows does their bit and contributes to the production of this Japanese dolls' house, and she herself starts to slowly develop the confidence to do more and more. Mr Twilfit the bookshop owner seems like a nasty, grumpy old sod at first, but he turns out to be quite a nice guy underneath it all. Starting school in England is yet another nightmarish new world, full of new people, for Nona, but she comes around to it in the end; she and her teacher Miss Lane get to know each other a bit more, and she makes a new friend called Melly. It even seems that the dolls have sort of become her muses. Belinda continues to kick up a fuss in the hope of getting her own way, but in the end she realises how harsh and selfish she has been, and that both dolls belong in the Japanese dolls' house. You can also see it her way though; because everyone has been concentrating on Nona's Japanese dolls' house, Belinda has felt pushed out somewhat. Nona is so glad that Belinda has changed her mind about the dolls that they finally hug and bond, and Belinda starts to have a better attitude and behave better. She even gets a surprise of her own at the end. I imagine this book will be relatable to a child, especially a girl, who knows what it is like to be a foreigner. Nona is ironically a foreigner in her family's country of origin, having lived somewhere else most of her life. The book will also be of interest to a child who is interested in all things Japanese. Although, I might add, it was published in the early '60s when there were no tablets, computers or smartphones, and attitudes about certain things were less understanding. There is even a plan for how to make the Japanese dolls' house at the back of the book; it's very complicated, so it would be best left to someone who is a keen and experienced carpenter, like Tom in the story. The story carries a message about attitudes and compromise. Although the dolls were intended for the girls to share, Belinda realises that they belong in the Japanese dolls' house and not her English one. Once Belinda changes her attitude and thinks of others, she finds she is happier and gets on with her family better. A lot of teamwork has gone into creating the Japanese dolls' house too, on almost everybody's part. Nona learns to come gradually further out of her comfort zone too and becomes more independent, going to the shops herself and doing her bit in making the Japanese dolls' house. She even feels bad that Belinda didn't get the dolls in the end, but she does get a surprise of her own at the end, which is Nona's idea. Nona also learns the value of things when she is pulled up about swapping her silver bangles for Melly's pencil box. She makes friends with Melly and her mum, and is gifted an identical pencil box and other things that she wouldn't have acquired if she hadn't given school a chance or made friends with Melly. The Japanese dolls' house would probably never have been made if she hadn't been brave enough to venture to Mr Twilfit's shop. Belinda realises her cousin is not so bad after all when she gives *her* a chance. All in all, the Japanese dolls' house is a project that has brought everyone together and built bridges between them all. All's well that ends well, as the saying goes.

Wonderful that this book has been recently reprinted, and so is available to a whole new set of children. A beautiful, down-to-earth, and encouraging story where the arrival of two small Japanese dolls into the lives of two little girls brings about changes in each child, one a lonely homesick anxious girl, the other a rough-and-tumble confident impulsive girl. The journey through jealousy and unkindness to rapport and real caring is feelingly described in such a warm and simple way that every young reader will feel welcomed and accepted and feel companioned in their own struggle with the strong feelings which surge within us all. Do also read the sequel, "Little Plum", a magnificent further unfolding of the story of these two little girls and the two small dolls.