Then poor old Teddy’s head came off.
Teddy has to rest.
The wear and tear on a beloved toy is seldom as graphically depicted as in this book by Dom Mansell. The narrator cheerfully involves Teddy in her daily adventures, leading to the loss of leg, arm and ear in successive pages.
The exuberant disorder of the child-centric house is drawn to perfection by Mansell. Mum’s skirt and beads are the perfect signifiers of her skill as a toy surgeon, if the thread and giant needle don’t say it all. Bedsides are small moments of stillness in a child’s day, and it’s here that the bad news is delivered to the story’s narrator AKA Teddy’s destructor.
Mansell’s line and scene-setting is perfect for this domestic drama to play out. The Teddy Doctor stays true to her own style, and all of the details of homely disorder that comes with loving care are drawn from the child narrator’s point of view.
During this first part of my life in children’s books, I met many families among library customers, colleagues and former school friends. I was invited into their homes and the warmest welcomes came from those which most closely resembled interiors by Mansell and Sarah Garland.
I knew all about the importance of introducing books before 3, but when I saw home bookshelves overflowing with books any old how – spines distressed or completely missing, titles crammed in upside down – I was shocked. While I was doing this horrified browsing, I would be handed a favourite title by jammy hands and asked to turn its scruffy pages for an eager listener. Any public librarian knows the hard use that picturebooks get, but when I thought of my own treasured collection, I silently made the kind of resolution every prospective parent does (so that the book gods may laugh.)
Fast forward five years: Here’s two-year-old Ms May roadtesting her new big girl bed quilt. When I took this picture, I imagined that she was rehearsing the bedtime reading of her favourite new book from the library. Those little fingers spread over My Old Teddy so protectively!
The next morning, her cot was littered with torn fragments of pages which I scooped into the cover and crawled back to Mandurah Library, Beezus-like, all apologies. After I paid for it, that entitled us to keep it. I stuck it back together with no regard for proper conservation methods but it was a long time before I felt like reading it aloud to her again.
The replacement of Ted with a newer model doesn’t diminish the affection he enjoys, and the sticky-taped book survives in Ms May’s bookcase.
To quote my favourite YouTuber Pete Beard, it’s a shame Mansell’s not better known. The only other book solely created by him that I was able to find is If Dinosaurs Came to Town, published in the same year. The Teddy Doctor is pictured escaping the Tylosaur, and Teddy’s in a heap of rubbish but still waving.
40 Years of Picture Books 