The Doll's Storybook

Stories about dolls who live in our world. Although these stories are suitable for children, they should check with their parents before reading and always be careful online. Readers are invited to donate to a charity supporting pediatric cancer treatment and research. Images shown are taken by the author or from a free image website with attribution and appreciation. The author has no connection with Götz Puppenmanufaktur, but gives them credit for the amazing dolls they produce.

Friday, March 27, 2026

Stars in the Sky

Shortly after Mariah came to join The Doll's Storybook cast, Jolena was showing her new sister around. Jolena loves to be outdoors, no matter what the weather is like. She wanted to share her enjoyment with Mariah.

The two dolls took a towel out to the backyard, so they could lie down on the grass, which was slightly damp.

"I love that we can lie on the ground and look at the sky," Jolena told Mariah. "Did you know that some dolls can't keep their eyes open when they lie down?"

"Yes," Mariah answered. "They made dolls like that in the factory where I was made. They call that 'sleeping eyes.' I'm glad we can see the sky, too. I don't mind so much that we have to wear a sleep mask at night to be able to sleep," Mariah continued. "Please show me where the stars are, Jolena."
Jolena looked at the sky a long time. "Stars are bright, twinkly things in the sky, right?" she asked. "I don't see anything like that. We should ask Mandy where they are and how to see them. Mandy knows all kinds of things about how the world works."
Jolena could see Mandy in her mind. She imagined Mandy in a special school that teaches you everything about how things work in the world. In her mind, that must have been long, long ago, because Mandy had already been out of her box for nearly two years! Jolena thought perhaps Mandy might even have been a teacher at that school.

"Let's go find Mandy and ask her," Mariah suggested.
The girls got up from the grass and went to find the sister who knows so much. They found her sitting on the bed, reading a book.

"Mandy," Jolena began. "Aren't there supposed to be stars in the sky? Mariah and I were lying in the grass, looking up at the sky, and we couldn't see anything bright and twinkly."

"Yes! I really want to see the stars," Mariah added. "Where are they?"
"The stars are there, Mariah," Mandy answered. "We will just have to wait until it gets dark to see them."

"Do they turn off in the daytime?" Jolena asked.
"No," said Mandy. "They are on all the time. We just can't see them."

"Where do they go?" Mariah wanted to know.
"They don't go anywhere," Mandy began. Then she stopped and thought. "Well, actually they are moving all the time, and so are we, we all move together, sort of, so we can find each one in close to the same place in the sky every night at the same time of night. You just can't see them in the daytime, except for our own star, the sun."

"The sun is a star?" asked Mariah.
"Yes, but the sun is much closer and the other stars are far, far away. Our star, the sun, is one reason we can't see the stars in the daytime," Mandy explained. "Because the sun is so much closer, we get a lot more light from it."

"The blanket of air that covers the earth is the other reason we can't see the stars," Mandy continued.

Mandy looked in the dog toy box for a ball. "Let me try to show you how it works," she said.

Mandy handed Jolena a flashlight.
She told her to hold the flashlight so it shone on the ball. "Pretend the ball is the Earth," she said. Then Mandy turned the ball slowly. "As the earth turns, the sun shining on it makes daytime where the sun is shining and nighttime where the light can't reach." The dolls could all see one dark side and one bright side of the ball.

"Now, this is where the air that surrounds the Earth comes in," Mandy explained. "The blanket of air is very big. It goes from down here on the surface of the earth, where we are, to way up in the sky, and when the sun shines on it, it lights up like the inside of a light bulb, from the top of the blanket of air all the way to the ground. We call this blanket of air the atmosphere (AT-mus-feer).

"In the daytime, you can look up in the sky and see clouds, birds and airplanes," Mandy said.
"And the sun!" said Jolena.
"Yes, but human people...children and adults...should never look directly at the sun, even with sunglasses on, because their eyes could be damaged," Mandy said. "Sometimes you can see the moon in the daytime, but it's safe to look at the moon, because it doesn't have light of its own. You can see everything in the sky that's near enough and over the place on the earth where you are, but you can't see the stars."

"When it gets dark, like on the back of the ball," Mandy explained, "when it's dark on the back of the Earth...then we can see the stars, because the blanket of air isn't lit up by the sun."

When it became dark outside, the three dolls went out and looked at the stars, which were now twinkling in the sky, along with the glowing moon.

"On the moon," Mandy said, "there is no blanket of air. Astronauts stood on the moon long ago. Even when the sun was shining on them, they could still see the stars in the sky."

"Isn't that interesting!" Exclaimed Mariah.

Then Mandy went back into the house to continue reading, because that's one reason she knows so much.
Jolena and Mariah went back to the towel on the grass and lay down. The dolls looked at each star and imagined how it was a big sun, but a long way away.

"I'm so glad we're the kind of dolls who can look up at the stars, without having our eyes close," sighed Jolena.
"We're very lucky dolls," agreed Mariah.

The two dolls lay there on the towel and watched the stars wink at them.

"I wonder why the stars twinkle," Mariah said then. They would have to ask Mandy.

Cast--

Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend

Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015

Image of the atmosphere: Quizlet at quizlet.com

You can follow The Doll's Storybook here.

Do you have questions or comments for us? Would you like to order an autographed copy of one of our books? You can email us at thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

Note: No dolls were harmed during production of this blog. All dolls shown are Götz Happy Kidz, Classic Kidz or Little Kidz. If you like these stories and are willing, please make a donation of any amount to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital or any organization that supports pediatric cancer research and treatment. We are not affiliated with St. Jude in any way other than these donations.

"The Doll's Storybook" is not affiliated with Gotz Dolls USA Inc. or Götz Puppenmanufaktur International GmbH.
Watch for the next story each Friday afternoon at 1:00 PM Pacific Time.

Do you like our stories? Some of them are available in print:

The stories in Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Being Little, Besties and Distraction.

The stories in Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Best Buds, Getting What You Want and The Boys Cook Dinner.

The stories in Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Little Green Greatcoat, The Boy Doll Who Cried Wolf and Lost in the Woods.

Our book of poems, Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook includes Valentine's Day, Keeping Pets, Back to School, Victor the Vulture, The Week Before Christmas, Insomnia and Veronika's Vocabulary Verses.

The stories in More Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Welcoming a Stranger, The Rescue, Unmasked, Fuzzy Town––A Play and Sky Blue.

Available now from BookBaby and other booksellers: Billy: Stories from The Doll's Storybook. The Stories in Billy: Stories from The Doll's Storybook are Talking About Boys, Changes, Shhhhh!, Staying After and Money in a Jar.

If you don't get free shipping from Amazon or B&N, buy from the BookBabyBookshop, because 50% of the price goes to St. Jude. Other booksellers pay much less, because the vendor gets a cut. The Writer's author's page at Book Baby is here. Scroll down and click on any of the books that interest you. Find our books at Barbara's Bookstore as well, or ask your library to get them for you.

Note: This blog post was produced on the iPad and the MacBook, using the iPhone for some photos and some photo processing. No other computer was used in any stage of composition or posting, and no Windows were opened, waited for, cleaned or broken. No animals or dolls were harmed during the production of this blog post.

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Friday, March 20, 2026

The Science Lesson at School

“I’m puzzled about something,” Billy said as the boys rode along the trail. “The teacher had us working in teams on a science assignment,” he said.

Emil loved listening. He loved hearing the crunch of the bicycles’ tires on the ground. He loved hearing the birds singing and the squirrels chattering to each other. The sound of the train whistle and the whirr of its wheels on the tracks made him happy.

Emil was happy to listen to Billy, too, even though he didn’t need his special glasses to hear Billy talking to him. He could hear Billy’s voice over the sounds the bicycles, the birds, the squirrels and the train were making. He could hear Billy in his head. Billy is Emil’s friend. “Tell me about it,” he told Billy.

The boys stopped at the old tree log, where they liked to sit and talk, and watch the birds and squirrels. They got off their bikes and took off their helmets.

“My teacher picked some of us to be team captains,” Billy began. “Then she let the captains pick one doll to be on the team and she assigned one of the dolls left over to be on the team,” Billy explained, while the boys settled on the log.

“We did something like that in my class, too,” Emil said. “It was interesting.”

“Yes,” Billy agreed. “It’s interesting when we get to work together with our classmates to work on a problem. I was one of the dolls who got to be captain,” Billy went on. “I picked Marty to be on my team, because he’s always saying how he's the best scientist ever. No one knows as much about science as he does, he says, so I thought he would be good on the team.” Billy paused to think how to say the next part. “The teacher picked Adam to be on our team,” he said. “We had to take him, but I didn't think he knew much, because he doesn’t say much. I figured Marty and I would do all the work.”

“Our assignment had to do with an experiment we did last week, when the teacher started growing rock candy,” Billy continued. “She made some water boil, then added sugar to it. When you couldn’t see any more sugar, she added more.”

Emil nodded. They had done the same thing in his class, but he let Billy talk. Billy explained things better if you didn’t interrupt him too often. Talking helped him organize his ideas.

“She kept adding sugar,” Billy went on, “until she couldn’t get it to disappear anymore. Then she poured the sugar water into a jar. She put stick down into the sugar water. What do you suppose happened?” Billy asked then.

“What happened?” Emil asked. He knew what happened, because they had done it in his class, too, but it was better to let Billy explain it.”

“We checked the jar each day,” Billy told him. “Colorless crystals started to appear around the stick. Each day they were bigger.”

Emil could hear a squirrel complaining that someone had found where he had his seeds and nuts hidden. He just nodded and encouraged Billy to go on. He knew that Billy’s experience would be different from his, and it would probably be very interesting.

“In our team,” Billy said, “we needed to come up with ideas about why it happened and think of a way to test our ideas. Marty said he knew all about how it happened, and it was magic, but Adam wondered why you had to wait until all the sugar had dissolved. I thought that was an interesting question. I was pretty sure it wasn’t magic. The three of us talked it over, but I was disappointed that Marty was no help at all.”

Billy paused and then continued. “Adam and I came up with an experiment to test our idea that there was too much sugar in the water, and so the sugar started to leave the water and attach to the stick. Adam called it saturation (satch-oo-RAY-shun). That’s when you can’t get the water to take up any more sugar, he said, so we were going to try it with less sugar, and see if it still made crystals. Marty just kept saying it was magic, and that we were wasting our time.”

The boys got up and began to walk their bikes along the trail. “Let’s climb on the rocks,” Billy suggested. Emil thought that would be fun. Besides, he knew Billy had more to say.

They parked their bikes under a tree. Billy took off his hat and put it into the basket on the bicycle he was using. Then the boys began to climb. While they climbed, Emil noticed the colors and textures the sunlight made on the rocks. He enjoyed seeing everything he couldn't see at home. He tried to make a memory he could revisit in his head. “What happened next?” he asked Billy.

Billy stopped walking and turned around so he could see Emil. “Well,” he began, “when the class got back together to talk about what we came up with, it was my job to tell what we thought and to present our experiment.”

“I explained what we thought and how to test our idea,” Billy went on, stopping to lean against a rock. “I didn’t mention Marty’s idea that it was magic, and when the teacher called on Marty, he didn’t mention magic, either. He just told her what Adam and I had come up with, but he made it sound like he had come up with it.”

“I don't understand,” Billy continued, as both boys continued to climb again, “if Marty is such a great scientist why did he insist it was magic and why, if he thought it was magic, would he give our answers to the teacher when she called on him.”

They were at the top now, so they both sat down.

“What do you think, Emil?” Billy asked.

Emil thought for a moment. “Tell me again,” he said, “why did you think Marty was good at science?”

“Because he said so,” was Billy's reply.

“Do you think he's really good at science?” Emil asked.

“Well,” Billy said thoughtfully, “he wasn't very helpful. When he kept saying it was magic, he wasn't looking at other possibilities. Adam and I ended up doing all the work.”

“I wonder if maybe Marty made up all that about being good at science,” Billy decided. “Adam is very quiet, so I didn't think he knew much, but he came up with good ideas and helped me come up with ideas, too. I think Adam is the one who is good at science, even if he didn't say so.”

“I wonder why that would be,” Emil said, after the boys climbed back down and got on their bicycles to finish their ride. “I mean, why would Marty tell you he was good at science if he wasn’t?”

“Let’s ask Veronika when we get home,” Billy suggested. “She knows a lot about why some dolls do things we don’t expect.”

When the boys got home, they put their bicycles away and went into the house, hoping to find Veronika.

“She’s in the living room,” Emil told Billy after they came inside.

Veronika and Pippa were reading.

“Veronika,” Billy said, “I need your help to understand something.”

Veronika closed her book.

“I want to know, too,” Emil said.

Veronika patted the couch next to her. She wanted them to come up and sit with her. Pippa closed her book and patted the couch next to her, too.

Billy and Emil climbed up to sit between the two girls. Billy explained the whole thing, the way he had explained it to Emil. Everyone listened while Billy was talking.

“What I want to know,” Billy said when he had finished, “is why Marty said he was good at science if he wasn’t.”

All Pippa could see was the back of Emil’s head. She sometimes wished she were taller.

“Well,” Veronika said, “I don’t know Marty, and I don’t know Adam, but dolls who are good at things usually don’t feel the need to say they are.”

“Dolls who brag a lot,” Veronika went on, “and that’s what it is, bragging, those dolls do it, I think, because they are trying to convince themselves that they are better than they think they are.”

Pippa leaned forward. Now she could see better.

“I think maybe it’s because they really feel bad about themselves,” Veronika said.

This was a new idea to Emil and Billy. How could you feel bad about yourself. Sure, you could feel bad about something you did, but you knew, deep down, you just needed to learn more.

“Dolls are good at pretending,” Veronika pointed out. “They are good at making others believe in what they are pretending, but maybe Marty’s child criticizes and scolds Marty too much, so Marty feels bad about himself. Maybe Marty’s child doesn't hold him and tell him how wonderful he is. What do you think?”

“I don’t know the child Marty lives with,” Billy replied, “but if Marty has to lie to feel better about himself, he must have a sad life.”

“Maybe his child has a sad life,” Veronika pointed out. “Maybe Marty's child feels bad about himself. Maybe Marty needs to know that he is helping his child deal with some unpleasant things. Maybe he is doing something very important to help, and he doesn’t know it.”

“I wonder if he would feel better about himself,” Emil suggested, leaning forward, “if he knew he was helping his child.”

Again Pippa wished she could see better. It’s difficult to be very small, sometimes.

“You don’t have to be good at science to help someone feel better,” Billy pointed out.

“Let’s try to figure out a way to help Marty realize what an important doll he is,” Emil suggested, “but we need to do it in a way that doesn’t hurt his feelings.”

Veronika nodded. “That’s a good idea,” she said, “and maybe if you ignore him when he brags, he won’t do it so much.”

“Maybe we can get him to talk about what’s happening at home,” Billy said. “Maybe that way we can show him how important he is.”

They all thought that was a good idea. They also thought about how the doll who brags about how he’s the best at something may not really be the person who is.

“Being short,” said Pippa, “isn’t as bad as feeling bad about yourself. If I had to pick, I’d rather be short.”

Cast--

Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni

Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London

Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia

Pippa: Götz Little Kidz Lotta

Photo of rock candy by Tijana Drndarski on Unsplash