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.

Showing posts with label atmosphere. Show all posts

Friday, April 3, 2026

Mandy, Why Do Stars Twinkle?

"I love that song," said Emil. "Do you know what it's called?"

"Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," Mariah replied. "Charlotte often plays it to warm up when she practices. It's one of the first things she learned."

Emil and Mariah were sitting on the windowsill in the workroom late in the afternoon when they heard Charlotte start practicing her violin.

They were quiet for a few minutes, listening.

"I thought stars were big," Emil said, as Charlotte started playing scales, going one step higher for each note. "I thought stars were like our sun, and our sun is much bigger than our earth, and that's very, very big. Why does the song say the stars are little?"

"It's a very old children's song," Mariah replied. "Before children learn that stars are really very big, they think they are little, because that's how they look when we see them in the sky at night."

"I know they look little because they are far away," Emil said. "I wonder why they twinkle."
"I wonder that, too," Mariah said.

Both dolls were lost in thought for a few moments.

Then they sat up. "Let's ask Mandy!" they both exclaimed at once.

Emil and Mariah found Mandy in the living room. Jolena was reading a story out loud to Mandy, who was knitting.

Mandy looked up from her work."What's up?" she asked.

"We were upstairs, listening to Charlotte play 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,'" Emil began, "and we started to wonder why stars twinkle."

"I would like to know that, too," Jolena said.

"Hmmmm. I may need to draw a picture," Mandy said as she moved her reading glasses to the top of her head.

"I left my notebook and pencil here," Mariah said. "You can use it," she offered, handing the notebook and pencil to Mandy.

The three younger dolls gathered around Mandy as she put her glasses back on her nose and drew a picture on a page in Mariah's notebook.

This is what she drew. (It wasn't easy, because her fingers don't move.)

"This is the earth," she said, pointing to what appeared to be part of a ball. "Here's the thick layer of air and stuff that covers the earth."

"It isn't a very good picture," Mandy said. The she concentrated on what it should look like and sent a better picture directly to the other dolls' minds.

"That's the atmosphere (AT-mus-fear)," Mariah said, "that layer of air and stuff around the earth. I remember that from when you explained why we don't see the stars in the daytime."

"That's right, Mariah," Mandy agreed. "The stars are out here," Mandy went on, pointing to the area outside the atmosphere in her drawing. "Their light has to go through our atmosphere for us to see it."

"The atmosphere is moving around all the time," Mandy continued. "Different parts of it are warmer or cooler, and there are other differences in it that bend the light one way or another and back again."

"Like looking through water that's moving in a stream or brook?" Mariah asked. "The moving water makes the rocks at the bottom look like they're wiggling."

"A lot like that," Mandy agreed, "only the water is thicker and there isn't as much of it, but that's the idea."
"So why don't the planets and the moon and the sun twinkle?" Emil asked.

"That's a very good question," Mandy said. "What do you know about the planets, the moon and the sun that might be different from the stars?" she asked.
The three younger dolls were quiet as they thought.

"The planets and the moon are like the earth" Jolena said. "They don't have light of their own. But the sun is like a ball of fire...but so are the stars."

"That's true," Mariah agreed, "The sun does have its own light, because it's a star, too. The planets that are close enough for us to see them get their light from the sun shining on them."

"I was just thinking," Emil said, "if there are planets too far away for us to see them, and the only star that doesn't twinkle is the sun, maybe the stars twinkle because they are far away."
"Very good, Emil," Mandy said. "Now you're on to something."

"But that's where I get lost," Emil sighed. "I don't see why that makes a difference."

"Because the stars are far away," Mandy explained, holding up her picture in Mariah's notebook again, "they look very tiny, like little dots. Very little of their light reaches us, so the little bit we see of it bends this way and that as it comes through the atmosphere."

"In the case of the planets, the moon and the sun," Mandy continued, "there is a lot more light that reaches our eyes, and some of it bends one way as it goes through the atmosphere and some of it bends the other way. With all that bending back and forth, we don't see them twinkle. There's so much light coming through that it seems steady."

All four dolls were quiet while each thought about that. Even Mandy, who knew all this already, had a lot to think about, because when you teach someone something, you learn new things yourself.

That's when they noticed Charlotte's violin music again.

"I'm glad I have my special glasses that help me see and hear," Emil said. "What is that she's playing now?"

They all listened for a moment.

"That's a melody from 'The Moonlight Sonata (suh-NAH-tuh),'" Mandy said. "That music was written for the piano, but it's very nice on the violin, even though Charlotte is playing only one note at a time. 'The Moonlight Sonata' is one of my favorites."

They listened some more. Charlotte stopped to fix a mistake she had made, or maybe to turn a page. Then she started again.

"I wonder," Emil said, "why the moon goes around the earth instead of around the sun the way the earth does."

All three younger dolls looked at Mandy.

Mandy would have rolled her eyes, except that her eyes are glued into her head.

"It's getting dark," she said, "and Charlotte seems to be done playing. Let's go out and watch the stars twinkle."

Cast--
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
Charlotte: Götz Happy Kidz Anna in Paris
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia

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.

<a href="https://www.bloglovin.com/blog/19832501/?claim=j3fj3mbb8kt">Follow my blog with Bloglovin</a>

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