The Doll People

Children’s stories featuring toys that come to life and have charming, magical adventures have been popular for a long time. One of the earliest examples is Carlo Collodi’s The Adventures of Pinocchio, from 1883. Another early example is Margery Williams’s beloved picture book The Velveteen Rabbit, first published in 1922. More modern examples are Emily Jenkins’s Toys Go Out (2006), Russell Hoban’s The Mouse and His Child (1967), and Clown by Quentin Blake (1998). Many movies have been made from books like these: Pinocchio, The Velveteen Rabbit, The Mouse and His Child, and Clown have all been adapted for the screen. The four Toy Story movies have also been enormously popular, indicating the enduring appeal of this concept for many family audiences. Although these books—as with The Doll People—are intended for the youngest independent readers, stories about living toys are also popular with older readers and viewers, for whom these stories can provoke a bittersweet nostalgia for the innocence of childhood.

The Doll People draws on the cultural tradition that toys as characters have intrinsic appeal for many children. Not only may children become emotionally attached to their own toys, but an important part of childhood play also involves imagining toys being more like people than inanimate objects—children routinely make up adventures and inner lives for their dolls, stuffed animals, and action figures.