Have you ever been jealous of your dolls fantastic living quarters and clothes? This fun little book will cure you. ( )

Mindy and her parents are at another farm sale. Her parents own an antique store and are always on the lookout for items. It is hot, dusty and while the parents are at the auction Mindy decides to do a little exploring of her own. Poking around in the old barn, Mindy climbs a ladder to the loft. Buried in a corner she finds a large old doll house.

She convinces her parents to let her 'bid' on it and gets it for ninety-two cents. The family lug it home and start to clean it up. To their surprise, it is a well crafted house with tons of detail. It could very well be a real house, except it is too small for humans to live in.

A television repair man showed up to 'fix' the television. Problem was there was nothing wrong with it and nobody had called for service. Once he was in the shop he started poking around and asking about 'doll furniture.' This made Mindy's parents uncomfortable, as they hadn't said anything about the doll house.

Later while visiting with her neighbour, Mrs. Bright, Mindy tells her about the doll house. Mrs. Bright grew up in their town and can tell Mindy quite a bit of history. When Mindy is describing the house, Mrs. Bright starts asking about specifics of the structure. It seems the doll house has a lot in common with Mrs. Bright's childhood home.

Mindy takes Mrs. Bright out to view the house and while they are there a strange thing happens. They are suddenly able to go into the house! And this is where the real adventure starts.

Yes, it is a children's book, but it still was entertaining. Imagination and creativity play into the story. Has anyone ever looked at a doll house and wondered what it would be like to live in one? ( )

I owned this as a child, but I have no idea whether I liked it. Weird, cuz I didn't own many books and many got reread many times between trips to the library. ( )

This is a very special book about a young girl who wanders off into a barn during a farm auction and discovers a very dirty, very old dollhouse, home to mice. She convinces her parents to see if it can be auctioned off, and she wins it.

When her elderly neighbor, Mrs. Bright, sees the dollhouse, she is shocked, for it is an exact replica of her family home, which had mysteriously vanished when the family was on vacation in California in 1915.

Soon a very unpleasant man, a certain Mr. Putt, begins skulking around Mindy's mother's antique store, and soon he's aggressively trying to procure the dollhouse by any means, fair or foul.

Mrs. Bright takes the dollhouse into her barn to hide it away, but as she and Mindy are examining it, they feel something like the barn "exploding backward," and Mindy discovers Mrs. Bright kneeling on the steps of her old house. She turns the knob and the door opens. "W-won't you come in, Mindy dear," she says in a quavering voice.

Many impossible adventures follow, and the two find themselves trapped in a miniature village meant as a tourist attraction many miles from their home. It's actually the shrunken town of Dopple, and some of the inhabitants of the town still live there, hidden away for all their years as miniature people from the eyes of not only the tourists but from Willie Kurtz,aka Mr. Putt, the owner of Lilliput USA. The townspeople have learned how to survive, but barely, and they've lost hope. It's up to Mindy and Mrs. Bright to fill them full of new hope and purpose so that together they can regain their orginal size and steal back their lives. ( )