Source
Click here to view the digital edition.
Description
This book centers on Mary, a white girl who lives in India. Mary is obsessed with fire, and she burns her head off after she disobeys her mother and plays with the stove. The family’s ethnically ambiguous servant, Domingos, finds the headless girl and replaces her head with a degchie, or kettle. Mary manages to conceal her new head from her parents for a short while, but that night is Christmas Eve. Santa arrives and gifts Mary “a beautiful doll’s head, with long golden hair, and real eyelashes” (Bannerman 99). The book concludes with Mary replaces the kettle with the doll’s head and never going near fire again.
The book was later published in 1904 as Little Kettle-head.
Creator
Helen Bannerman
Publisher
James Nisbet & Co.
Publication Date
1903
Language
English