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 pediatric cancer. 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

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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, January 9, 2026

Pen Pals

"I hope you are enjoying your new home, too," Emil wrote. "Your friend, Emil." Emil put down the pen and looked at the letter.

He was just starting to read it through, when Pippa came in.

"Whatcha doing?" Pippa asked.

"I was just finishing this letter to my friend Holly," Emil replied. "We were together in the doll hospital at the factory before I came here. We both had things that went wrong when we were put together."

"I know you can't hear or see without your special glasses," Pippa said. "Why was Holly in the doll hospital?"

"Holly's legs were made wrong," Emil explained.

"She can't walk," Emil said. "They tried to fix her legs, but it didn't work out, so they gave her a wheelchair."

"What's a wheelchair?" Pippa asked.

"It's a chair with wheels that a doll can sit in," Emil said. "The doll can make the chair roll to where they want to go. It's really kind of cool, and it made Holly happy to be able to go places, even though it still isn't as easy as walking or running is for us."

"It was good, though," Emil continued, "because she went to live with a real human girl who also has to use a wheelchair to get around. It made the girl happy to have a doll who was like her."

"Was the human girl made wrong in the factory, too?" Pippa wanted to know.

"I don't know," Emil said. "Maybe I can ask Holly."

"Why don't you read me your letter," Pippa suggested. "I'm interested to know what you had to say. If it isn't too private," she added.

Emil nodded. "There's nothing private in it," he said. "I'll read it to you."

Emil began reading.

Dear Holly,

It has been more than a year since we went to our new homes, and a lot has happened. I thought I would write to you and let you know I am doing well and tell a bit about what I've been up to.

Everyone here has been very nice to me. My problem with seeing and hearing hasn't caused too many problems for me. One time my special glasses didn't charge because the cat knocked them out of the charger, but Billy (that's my brother) found them under the bed and helped me get them back into the charger.

Another time, the smoke alarm went off in the middle of the night, and I didn't hear it, but Billy did, and he woke me up. It was a false alarm, but it was good practice for all of us.

Billy didn't like his hair. He thought it looked like a girl with hair cut off, so he decided to get a wig. I thought it was a good idea, so we both have wigs now. We think it makes us look more like real boys.

I have six sisters now. When I came, there were just five of them and Billy, but Pippa came last month, so now there are eight of us.

My sisters and Billy are all the same kind of dolls, but we're different from each other, and that makes things interesting.

We live in a big house with two old people. They are The Writer, who writes these stories, and her husband. They let us do what we want, as long as it is safe, but we try to be good. When they leave to go somewhere, though, we sometimes explore places they don't take us. Sometimes we go out the dog door to the backyard to play.

We like to ride bicycles along the trail near the house.

The girls like to try on The Writer's clothes sometimes.

Sometimes we help the old people by cleaning the house or doing the dishes. My favorite thing is making the robot vacuum cleaner clean the floor.

Of course, we go to school with other dolls. Sometimes some of the other dolls are not as easy to get along with as my brother and sisters, but we talk things over at home, so we can learn to get along with them.

I found out that I can hear and understand the thoughts of animals. One of my sisters says I probably developed that ability because I couldn't see or hear in the beginning, and the part of my brain mostly used for seeing and hearing started being used for that.

The most important thing about my family is that we are very different from most doll families. Most dolls go to live with children to help teach them to take care of someone besides themselves, or to have adventures using their imaginations. Some go to live with older people who like to dress them and admire them. Those dolls may have lots and lots of sisters and maybe a brother or two. Our doll family is different, though. We get to be in stories for human children and grown-ups to read.

This makes me feel very important, Holly. It's even a good thing that I wasn't made perfectly, because there are some children who have problems like mine, just as there are some real children who have problems like yours. They need to know that they can have adventures, too, I think.

Please write me, if it isn't too much trouble. I would like to know how you are doing and what you're up to. I hope you have friends and that you're having adventures. I hope you are enjoying your new home, too.

Your friend,

Emil

Emil put the letter down and looked at Pippa.

"It's a good letter, I think," Pippa said. "I could see everything in my head when you were reading it. It was interesting."

"That's good," Emil said. "Maybe Holly will find it interesting, too. Now I just need to address the envelope and find a stamp," he added.

Pippa was staring off into space. Well, she was actually staring at the light in the laundry room, but she was thinking, so what she was looking at was not important. It did not reach her brain. "You know," she began, "I'm a little bit like you and Holly."

"Well," Emil replied, "you're a doll, too."

"I mean," she said, "I'm different in a way that gives me problems. Because I'm so small, some things are hard for me to do. I'm not getting any bigger, either. Dolls don't grow, you know."

Emil thought he knew what she meant. "I wonder if there are real children who will always be small, too," he suggested.

The two dolls thought about that.

"I think maybe you have a special purpose, Pippa," Emil said.

"Veronika told me that we all have a special purpose," Pippa said, "but maybe I just found mine.

Cast--

Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni

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

Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London

Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia

Pippa: Götz Little Kidz Lotta