Once Upon a Toy
Essays on the Interplay Between Stories and Playthings
Published on 7. July 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
231 pages
978-1-4766-9464-1 (ISBN)
Description
In the magical realm of children's play, toys and stories have a rich and complex relationship. In this collection, contributors analyze the many types of interplay between children's toys and narrative. Many of these essays explore how this relationship is portrayed in novels, films, and television programs. Others discuss how this relationship is shaped by broader historical and cultural narratives. Still other essays discuss how children create their own stories while playing with toys.
Taken together, the essays speak to the myriad ways that toys are represented in popular narratives and provide insights into the meanings that toys hold for children, adults and society.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Jefferson, NC
United States
Illustrations
Halftones, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 254 mm
Width: 178 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
445 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4766-9464-1 (9781476694641)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Kathy Merlock Jackson is a professor of media and communication at Virginia Wesleyan University, where she teaches courses in media studies and children's culture. She is the author of over a hundred articles, chapters, and reviews and has published fourteen books. She is a former editor of The Journal of American Culture and a past president of the Popular Culture Association. Mark I. West is the former chair of the English department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. He has written or edited twenty-five books on children's literature and culture and is a former president of the Children's Literature Association.
Content
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Kathy Merlock Jackson and Mark I. West
Iconic Toy Characters
The Winnie-the-Pooh Toys and Their Immigration to America
Mark I. West
"Just representing a woman": The Tension Between Toyhood and Womanhood in the 2023 Barbie Movie
Collette Bliss
Dolls
"At least I pretend I believe": Dolls, Imagination, and Empathy in A Little Princess
Claudia Mills
Dolls with Opinions: Tracing Sentient Dolls from The Adventures of a Doll (1816) to Hitty: Her First Hundred Years (1929)
Katharine Kittredge
Writing Sitting Pretty: A Celebration of Black Dolls and an Author's Reflection on Bringing Her Dolls to Life
Dianne Johnson-Feelings (aka Dinah Johnson)
Puppets
Breathing Life into the Wood: Pinocchio and the Uncanny
Martin Woodside
Screen Puppetry: Toys in the History of Stop-Motion Animation
Holly Blackford Humes
Building Toys
LEGOS: Child Development and Storytelling
Jacki Fitzpatrick
"Of bricks and other things": E. Nesbit's Theory and Practice of Building Magic Cities
Jan Susina
Toys, Race, and Ethnicity
Playing with Race: Replicating and Subverting Minstrel Narratives in Children's Toys
Dorian Cole
The Edge of Play: Belonging and Borderlands in Juan Felipe Herrera's Picture Book Super Cilantro Girl/La Superniña del Cilantro
Maya Socolovsky
Toys, Nature, and the Environment
Reimagining Play "For Real Life": How Bluey Replaces Toys, Games, and Technology with Relationships, Role-Play, and the Natural World
Haley Flanders Anderson
Eco-Fiction Storytelling with the Underfoot Character Toys
Tanya Marriott
Toys in Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, and Digital Animation
Future Shock Science Fiction as a Toy('s) Story in Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Garret Castleberry
M3gan, Ron, Klara and The(ir) Playing Children: Exploring Toy Friends of the Future Through Speculative Toy Fiction
Katriina Heljakka and Jacqueline Fulmer
From Luxo to Lou: Toys in Pixar Shorts and the Search for Meaning
Paula T. Connolly
Displacement, Brokenness, and Toys
Toys in Children's Literature of Forced Displacement
Sarah Minslow
Broken Toys and What They Mean: A Media Analysis
Kathy Merlock Jackson
Timeless Tales of Rabbits, Bears, Toys, and Dolls and How They Become Real: A Bibliography of Toys and Stories in Interplay
Camille McCutcheon
About the Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Kathy Merlock Jackson and Mark I. West
Iconic Toy Characters
The Winnie-the-Pooh Toys and Their Immigration to America
Mark I. West
"Just representing a woman": The Tension Between Toyhood and Womanhood in the 2023 Barbie Movie
Collette Bliss
Dolls
"At least I pretend I believe": Dolls, Imagination, and Empathy in A Little Princess
Claudia Mills
Dolls with Opinions: Tracing Sentient Dolls from The Adventures of a Doll (1816) to Hitty: Her First Hundred Years (1929)
Katharine Kittredge
Writing Sitting Pretty: A Celebration of Black Dolls and an Author's Reflection on Bringing Her Dolls to Life
Dianne Johnson-Feelings (aka Dinah Johnson)
Puppets
Breathing Life into the Wood: Pinocchio and the Uncanny
Martin Woodside
Screen Puppetry: Toys in the History of Stop-Motion Animation
Holly Blackford Humes
Building Toys
LEGOS: Child Development and Storytelling
Jacki Fitzpatrick
"Of bricks and other things": E. Nesbit's Theory and Practice of Building Magic Cities
Jan Susina
Toys, Race, and Ethnicity
Playing with Race: Replicating and Subverting Minstrel Narratives in Children's Toys
Dorian Cole
The Edge of Play: Belonging and Borderlands in Juan Felipe Herrera's Picture Book Super Cilantro Girl/La Superniña del Cilantro
Maya Socolovsky
Toys, Nature, and the Environment
Reimagining Play "For Real Life": How Bluey Replaces Toys, Games, and Technology with Relationships, Role-Play, and the Natural World
Haley Flanders Anderson
Eco-Fiction Storytelling with the Underfoot Character Toys
Tanya Marriott
Toys in Science Fiction, Speculative Fiction, and Digital Animation
Future Shock Science Fiction as a Toy('s) Story in Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Garret Castleberry
M3gan, Ron, Klara and The(ir) Playing Children: Exploring Toy Friends of the Future Through Speculative Toy Fiction
Katriina Heljakka and Jacqueline Fulmer
From Luxo to Lou: Toys in Pixar Shorts and the Search for Meaning
Paula T. Connolly
Displacement, Brokenness, and Toys
Toys in Children's Literature of Forced Displacement
Sarah Minslow
Broken Toys and What They Mean: A Media Analysis
Kathy Merlock Jackson
Timeless Tales of Rabbits, Bears, Toys, and Dolls and How They Become Real: A Bibliography of Toys and Stories in Interplay
Camille McCutcheon
About the Contributors
Index