Changes for Molly: A Winter Story

American Girl: Molly #6

by Valerie Tripp

Molly can't wait for Dad to come home--he'll arrive in time to see her dance the part of Miss Victory in the big Red Cross show! Molly isn't worried about her tap dancing, but she wants to look sophisticated so that Dad will know how much she's grown up while he's been away at war. Unfortunately, Molly's hair is all wrong. When Jill finally finds a way to give Molly glorious curls, everything seems to be perfect. Then Molly gets sick. Things couldn't be worse--until the doctor comes just in time.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Childrens, Fiction, Historical, Middle Grade, Chapter Books, Young Adult

80 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1988

About the author

Valerie Tripp is a children's book author, best known for her work with the American Girl series.

She grew up in Mount Kisco, New York with three sisters and one brother. A member of the first co-educated class at Yale University, Tripp also has a M.Ed. from Harvard. Since 1985 she has lived in Silver Spring, Maryland. Her husband teaches history at Montgomery College.

Right out of college, Tripp started writing songs, stories, and nonfiction for The Superkids Reading Program, working with Pleasant Rowland, the founder of American Girl. For that series, Tripp wrote all the books about Felicity, Josefina, Kit, Molly, and Maryellen and many of the books about Samantha. She also wrote the "Best Friends" character stories to date, plays, mysteries, and short stories about all her characters.. Film dramatizations of the lives of Samantha, Felicity, Molly, and Kit have been based on her stories. Currently, Tripp is writing a STEM series for National Geographic and adapting Greek Myths for Starry Forest Publishing. A frequent speaker at schools and libraries, Tripp has also spoken at the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, The New York Historical Society, and Williamsburg.

Reviews

[Miranda Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

"That night, Molly couldn't sleep. Dad's coming home, Dad's coming home, she kept thinking. She felt the excitement growing, growing, growing inside until she thought she'd burst with happiness."

Molly cannot think of anything else besides her Dad returning from England, but once that initial excitement wears off, she begins to worry.

Dad wrote a really nice note talking about all the things he was excited to see when he came home and Molly fixates on how Dad mentions how much Jill has changed. Molly feels like the same old kid - hair in two straight braids, playing around, and being so childish.

Molly really wants the starring role in their upcoming show for the troops but she feels like she needs to have curly hair to do it -and when her dad sees her in the show, he will be impressed and say something like:

"Why Molly! You've changed so much. You're so grown-up and sophisticated! Just as much as Jill!"

So Molly, and her two best friends, concoct a plan involving a perm. Luckily, Molly's older sister (Jill) steps in and decides to take Molly under her wing.

Molly sighed. "Even if I wore your exact same clothes, I still wouldn't look grown up."
"You can't make it happen faster than it's going to happen," said Jill. "And you shouldn't try, anyway."

But on the day of the grand show, something goes horribly wrong and when everything looks like it might be ruined, something special happens to make it a little better.

As you all probably know by now, the Molly books have been fairly hit or miss for me. I think this one is my favorite of the bunch.

Molly's hypefixation on her hair reminds me of my time as a preteen thinking that once I got my ears pierced how I would become uber sophisticated and everyone would notice how grown up I was.

I liked the way her friends supported her and provided with the money and willingness to do an at-home-perm. And I really connected with the way Jill spoke to Molly about how this war has affected them.

"Sometimes I'm sorry because I think the war made all of us grow up too fast. We had to kind of hurry into being serious...I think you're lucky. At least you have a few more years of being a kid with him."

I think the most impactful moment was when Molly's mom sets her down to discuss what it might be like for her dad to come back from the war.

I know it's a bit long but I felt like she did such a great job explaining how war affects people.

"He has seen some very sad and terrible things during war. War does change people. It doesn't just happen and then disappear, all forgiven and forgotten. War leaves scars on people, and not just the kind of scars you can see. But I think Dad will still be our same old Dad at heart. He'll still love us. We'll all have to get used to each other again. It may take some time. We're all older. We're all different."

It got me all teary when I thought about the lost family time and how they had been separated for so long.

That being said, I do want to know what happened to Molly's puppy and Emily! I've only read the main series so far but in book 4 (Happy Birthday Molly), we meet Emily (who was sent here from England and stays with Molly's family).

The two girls both get puppies for their birthdays, but Emily is only mentioned in a single line waaay far into book 6 and the puppy doesn't exist in either book 5 or 6. There's specifically a scene where Molly is left home alone and NO puppy is shown in the book at all.

WHERE DID THE PUPPY GO???

[Olde American Spirit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. This one was fantastic - as was the whole series. Friendship, faith, love, patriotism, lessons. Yes, please love it. Highly recommend this series!

[Kailey (Luminous Libro) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I always cry at the beautiful ending! This is such a sweet and meaningful book. I just adore Molly!

[Eva B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Full series review for Molly:
Molly, Molly, Molly, possibly one of the most contentious AG dolls. Opinions on her seem fairly split and while I used to be in the camp of "Molly is so annoying and boring!", rereading her books made me really like her. She isn't in my top five or anything but I have a soft spot for good old olly Molly. Her books are in an odd in-between where it's kind of hard to see her struggles like "I don't want to eat turnips" and "my birthday party isn't what I want it to be" as, well, struggles given the broader context of World War Two--even outside of the soldiers, whenever I was reading about Molly not wanting to eat turnips all I could think was "this is so, SO minor compared to what kids in Europe (especially Jewish kids!) are going through right now", but also I think the book is, to some extent, aware of this, at least in Happy Birthday, Molly! when Emily criticizes the McIntire kids for the lighthearted way they treat the war. As a portrait of life on the Home Front, the Molly books are very good, but you can't really take the story out of the Home Front without its conflicts seeming incredibly petty in scale. However, Changes For Molly was incredibly anticlimactic--while a part of me really likes the message of Molly not having to change herself at all and that her dad will love her even if she has straight hair and glasses and isn't a tap star, Molly put SO MUCH time into becoming the best at her dance and it clearly meant a lot for her even before her dad was confirmed to be arriving that day--it would be one thing if Molly had been given the role of Miss Liberty because she begged the teacher for it due to her dad's return but we see her putting her whole heart and soul into learning that dance so the ending is like...can't she have a nice thing? Please?
Also, while I know I mentioned this in my Brave Emily review, I'm always so surprised by the fact that Emily is in one book and one mystery given her Best Friend Doll status and how she's such a memorable part of the books. I wish that she had been a bit more prominent in the series since you have to read the Molly mysteries to understand why she disappears between books 4 and 5 (her aunt recovers from pneumonia and she moves in with her). I think she should have been in the entire series (or at least the last three books), especially since it would give Molly a sharper point of contrast from the start and a conflict that was more than "I don't like turnips and my Halloween costume got ruined :(".

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-reading as an adult, here's what stands out:

- Having experimented a little with pin curls, Molly's hair is definitely on the long side for that to work well - no wonder the curls don't last.

- Sometimes Molly and her friends really wind up egging each other on into ideas that they know deep down are no good. Molly's sudden relief when Jill nixes the perm scheme is palpable - but you know that if Jill hadn't walked in, Molly 100% would have gone through with it.

- All of the tap dancing scenes read as though Tripp has zero knowledge or research on the subject.

- Like Happy Birthday, Molly, the ending of this one feels like it really wants to have one more scene. Both endings come up really suddenly.

Compared to the other original AG series, Molly has a clearer six-book arc than Kirsten or Samantha. Jill's comments about how much Molly has grown up over the course of the series while Dad has been away are a fairly obvious way of tying a bow on the whole series, but she's not wrong. Molly's arc is about embracing change. Where the early books focus heavily on how the war has changed Molly's life in a negative way, later books are more about leadership and problem solving.

Consider the Lend a Hand project in Molly Learns a Lesson where Molly drags her friends around their neighborhood in the rain because she can't bring herself to speak up to critique the knitting idea in class versus her leadership at camp in Molly Saves the Day. Even though the other girls don't take her side at first, she's willing to speak up and point out the flaws in Dorinda's plan. We first meet Molly dreaming about ways to convince her mother to make an impossible costume and her friends to be ugly stepsisters. By "Changes," she - with help from her friends and sister - goes beyond dreaming and is ready to take action to get the results she wants.

[Angela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never been able to read this book without crying. I'm not usually one to cry over books, but this one gets to me every time. So good!

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Moly’s show.But I am sad that moly gets a cold.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just love this book. And the whole series for that matter. I love the patriotism of the time and wish it were still so today. I also love that Molly’s dad came home I just wish we had more of him in the story!

[Hannah Showalter · Rating 5 out of 5]

this is the molly book i remember the most and probably is my favorite! it’s the reason my mom always put my hair in pin curls as a kid!

[RaspberryRoses · Rating 3 out of 5]

honestly. kind of wild that molly's insistence that her hair isn't beautiful enough isn't really pushed back on by the narrative. i feel like this has the potential to fuck with a girls self-image.

like don't get me wrong. i don't think its wrong for her to want to curl her hair. and it leads to some lovely scenes with jill that i adored. i guess i just wish we had a more specific look into that issue.

more general thoughts on the series:

golly miss molly... she was an absolute favorite of mine as a kid. i had a real fondness for her, so despite never actually reading her books, that fondness did transfer over to the book series.

It's an odd one, though. I think a lot of the oddness of her books tone is that prevalance of her friends Linda and Susan - they're pretty constantly with her. She's always got her posse of girlies, and they can often bring out the worst in each other. Not in an evil way just in a "let's get a perm" sort of way.

It's also so weird that, throughout this entire series, I don't think the Holocaust is mentioned once...? It's a WW2 book. We are constantly talking about WW2 and the fact we're fighting Nazi's. But even in the peek into the past, it never once discusses why we hated Hitler. It's a pretty shocking omission and it's pretty noticeable throughout the text.

[Sadie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Molly is pretty cute in this one. I especially liked the author’s portrayal of her self deprecating inner monologue (I can relate). The ending was perfectly imperfect. I will say though I think this book is very different from the movie… I guess I’ll have to rewatch it to find out!

[Historical Dolls Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely my favorite from the series! ❤️❤️

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Spent this whole book wondering when hairspray and curling rods were invented

[Morgan's Endless Bookshelf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poor Molly! I loved seeing her and Jill's relationship in this one (and I'm really glad she interrupted that perm)!

[Shayla Salazar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow…the girl’s conversation about the cost of war was so beautiful and so innocent it would give anyone pause to think. That was incredible!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who identified strongly as a Molly as a child (and still does as an adult), I have had to take a good hard look at myself in this really uncomfortable way. Did I have an existential crisis? No. Is that because I just had one a few months ago during the pandemic? Probably. There's been moments in this series where I've read this and been like, "Oh god..am I really like that?" (Ex. Betraying a friend by dumping her worst fear on her - literally (Molly Saves the Day) ) Or other times where Molly has been kind of a brat (Happy Birthday Molly!) when she concocted an elaborate revenge scheme on a British girl who had been relocated to their home. (Also, total side not on that one - why not make her Jewish? Then they could touch upon all the horrors of the Holocaust which was barely noted in the Peek into the Past in Book 6. Book 6!)

Anyway, onto this book. Perms had had a presence in my childhood, as had crimping and other brutal forms of hair torture. So, I had been totally along with the 'Molly Gets a Perm' ride. I remember being ready to be horrified by the poofy results, but instead her older sister had come to save Molly from a poor life choice. This was relatable content for me, since I took have an older sister who has certainly saved me from other poor life choices.

As an adult reading this, it was hard to deal with the idea that a girl with straight brown hair and glasses couldn't be viewed as pretty enough, and that so much of this book focused on Molly's looks. She's 10. It's gross how as a society in general we've always placed a certain inherent value on a woman's looks, and seeing that in a book for young children is not something that I came here for. I remember distinctly not wanting to wear my glasses when I was around this age, and could it be Val Tripp's fault that I went blindly about life mistaking strangers for friends and friends for strangers? Maybe.

I do think there is a saving grace at the end of this book, where the fact that Molly looks the same as she always did has meaning to her father. As a parent, it's probably a gift to have someone who hasn't changed so drastically you worry you won't fit in anymore after being gone for so long. Has Molly grown? Debatable - the examples Jill gave were kind of trash. She cited Molly's 'generosity' towards Emily as a sign of growth when we all know Molly had been fully ready to banish her from it and had been pretty nasty to her when Jill wasn't around. If she has, it's not enough for her Dad to have missed major points in her life. She is still kind of a kid, and she's still stubbornly sticking to her guns.

(As a reviewer, I try to keep in mind that this book is written for little girls, and not me, but whatever. Once a Molly, always a Molly, so this is all about me no matter the age. Kidding - or am I?)

[Bree · Rating 2 out of 5]

This review is from the perspective of a mother. I am reading the books to decided when they are age appropriate for my daughter.

I'm torn on this book. The early Molly books are about how she resists change, she wishes everything was like before the war, with her family together, and everyone the same. And then she begins to mature in the later books, taking on leadership roles and wanting the spotlight, sometimes in a childish way, but usually good.

Then this book flips everything around and she wishes she was different, that her dad would see how different she is now. So while all ends well for the McIntyres, even if things don't work out 100% for Molly, I feel like the message in this book was confusing compared to where the rest of the series went.

I think the series has highs and lows, but overall, the messages and lessons were well presented.

[Laura (Book Scrounger) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Molly is involved in a patriotic dance production, and works hard to get a lead role. Along the way, she tries different ways to make her hair to look the way she wants it to -- hopefully not something that second- or third-grade readers are too caught up in just yet -- but certainly something that most girls experiment with at some point or another (to varying degrees). By the end of the story, things have not worked out the way she wants them to, but it all pales in comparison when she gets the best gift she could have asked for.

Update: My kids enjoyed this one -- I think it's one of my favorites in the series and the ending makes me cry. My kids were a bit distressed at how set Molly was on changing the way she looked -- even though she learns a good lesson, I wish there'd been a bit more discussion about it.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Time for a series recap! This was such a sweet, family-centric story. I enjoyed getting to see an English perspective of the war in book three/seeing the similarities and differences between that and Molly’s experience as an American child, far away from the war but also missing someone dear to her. I loved the homey and realistic vibes of the family dynamic. The ending came abruptly to me, but was so sweet. The Looking Back sections gave a pretty good basic overview of aspects of WWII in a digestible way for the target audience, while still staying true about how war is not cute and not fun. Being patriotic and having hope against fear was a common reminder for Molly, as it was in the real life 1940s. A good series!

[Panda Incognito · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though I remembered everything about this book's ending and didn't intend to cry, I still had happy tears streaming down my face as I read the last two pages.

This book is a roller coaster of joys and disappointments. When I was a child, I was unhappy with one of the key plot developments, and when the Molly movie adaptation came out, I preferred its picture-perfect ending. Now, however, I am older and know that the book is perfect the way that it is. Sometimes life doesn't go the way that you want and is still beautiful anyway.

[Laura]

I don't see a lot of point in adding star ratings to these as an adult. . . five stars for nostalgia, but also five stars for laughing a bit at my own nostalgia. My friend and I were discussing how over-the-top this one was, and I just had to revisit it! (However, I also misremembered events from the Christmas book as being included in this one, so the over-the-top content was essentially halved.)

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve really enjoyed re-reading these books. I forgot how good they are, and I especially love the “looking back” historical pages at the end.

This series is a huge part of the reason that I became such a historical fiction nut, and now I can’t wait to re-read the books featuring the other four original girls.

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay so the Molly books didn’t hit as hard as the Addy books. A number of factors are probably at play—maybe because I live abroad in enemy territory, maybe because it’s hard to feel patriotic these days, maybe because the stakes felt flat, maybe because Molly is simply more insufferable. But no matter. I’m still excited to continue reading the American Girl series this year.

[Rachel Moyes]

When I say I sobbed--

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's not really anything going on in this book besides Molly being vain about her appearance.

[Mandy]

I also remember this literal fit from her movie molly my patriotic queen

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good story but it needs some sensitivity editing out of a line or two.

[Kristi Drillien · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may be one of the most difficult to relate to in the series, which is sad, because it's the final one (in the main series, at least). I wish the focus hadn't been so strongly on Molly "looking the part," that perhaps she could have learned that talent and ability were more important. But that's not how it plays out and is probably the only one in the series that I rated 4/5, instead of 5/5. Still, the ending is really great!

I thought these books might be silly or feel too light, since these books were written to go along with actual dolls, thus they could have been very quick and simple. However, they don't smack of a marketing ploy; the author did a great job with them, and they're really just like any other book series written for kids this age. Also, the "Looking Back" section at the end of each book is really interesting! I love that it gives a little history of the time period, generally relating to the story, with pictures and even examples of ads/posters/propaganda from that time period. The focus is on children and even women, which is something that you really aren't going to see a lot of places. I think these books could be a great resource for teaching kids age 7+ about the time period, how kids lived in those days, and the hardships they had to deal with. If I'd gotten to these books when my daughter was younger, I would have had her read them and then discussed them with her afterward.

[Jocelyn Garcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, this is probably my least favorite AG book so far. It’s so anticlimactic and they didn’t even have the decency to offer an illustration of Mr. McIntire and Molly’s reunion at the end.

I feel like this series is just really lacking which surprises me because Molly is so beloved. My only thought is that she’s so beloved because she is one of the big 3. I don’t dislike Molly by any means, but I’m disappointed because 1940s America is such an interesting and important time and this series really did not bring the history the way a lot of the other girls’ series did.

Still love her whole doll collection though.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed Molly’s series, and I think it did a great job of capturing what life at home was like for families during WWII. This is one of my favorites from the series because I did really like the lesson that Molly learned in this story about accepting herself. I wish that we would have seen the reunion of Molly’s whole family with her father, and I also think the story would have been even better if the family, and maybe a few of their friends could have done a smaller scale version of their show for Molly’s dad. That would have been a sweeter ending, I think.