Mariah had the feeling that someone was looking at her. Staring at her, in fact. She turned her head. "Hi, Pippa," she said.
"Hi, Mariah," Pippa said, continuing to stare.
"Do you need something?" Mariah asked.
"I think you're very pretty," Pippa said, "and I was wondering why your vinyl is brown. None of the rest of us has brown vinyl."
"It's for the same reason," Mariah explained, "that we're all different. Real children are different from each other, and some real children look like me."
"Do some real children look like me?" Pippa asked.
"Of course," Mariah replied, "and some real children will never grow to be as big as others, even though they will grow, and we don't. You're small because some real children stay small."
"Why do we have to look like real children?" Pippa asked.
Mariah had to think about that. "Well," she began, "I think it's so they can pretend we are real children. We're here to teach them how to look after others and how to be kind and get along with each other."
"We give children a safe way to have dangerous adventures," Mariah continued, "by pretending."
"But," Pippa asked, "why do real children come in different colors?"
Mariah thought for a moment. "Children," she said finally, "usually look a lot like their parents. If both parents have dark skin and brown eyes, then they usually do, too. Human people come in different colors like dogs, cats and cows."
"But why do they come in different colors," Pippa wanted to know. She was not satisfied with Mariah's answer.
Mariah was stumped. That means she wasn't sure she knew how to answer that question. She turned to Mandy. "That's a good question," she said. "Mandy, do you know?"
Mandy knows a lot of things, and if she doesn't know something she knows how to look it up and where to get correct information. "Yes," she said. "I read about it. It's interesting. You see, the first human people all lived in one part of the world. When there got to be a lot of them, some of them moved away to live somewhere else, where there was more food and more room to have a home," she explained. "This happened many times over many thousands of years," she said, "and finally there were people all over the world."
"After many generations (jen-uh-RAY-shuns)," Mandy continued, "(a generation is a like a lifetime), after many generations of being far away from those other human people, their children began to look slightly different from those in other parts of the world in some ways, like skin and eye color, but still very much like the others who lived near them." Mandy moved her glasses to the top of her head. "They were still human people inside, but their outsides started to look different," she explained.
Then Mandy paused and thought for a moment, remembering what she had read. "Human people who lived where there was very little sun gradually had lighter skin, because their bodies needed to take in the sun. Human people who lived where there was lots of sun gradually had darker skin, to protect their skin, because too much sun can be dangerous to real people."
"Are human people like plants, then?" Mariah asked. "Can they use the sun to make their own food?"
"Sort of," Mandy said, "but only a little bit. They need the sun so their bodies can make something called Vitamin D (VITE-a-min D), but they still need to eat, because they need more than just Vitamin D. Too much sun, though, is dangerous. Light-skinned human people, especially those with red hair and freckles, like me, need to be careful, because they can get sunburned if they get too much sun. Sunburn is painful and can damage the skin. That's why they use protective lotions on their skin if they have to be out in the sun more than is good for them."
"This is interesting," Pippa said. "Why do all of us have light-colored vinyl and Mariah has dark brown vinyl? Are there fewer human children in the world who look like Mariah?"
Mariah wanted to know this, too.
"No," Mandy began, "There are lots and lots of human children who look like Mariah, but all of us, including Mariah, were made by a doll company in a country where there used to be only light-skinned people."
"Today," Mandy continued, "human people go everywhere and can live anywhere, and they can get their Vitamin D from pills, so there are a lot of human people living there who have darker skin, and many who look like Mariah, but still most people there have lighter skin. Some have dark hair and brown eyes, but others have lighter hair and eyes, too, like you, Pippa."
Mariah and Pippa listened carefully. They wanted to remember what they heard.
"Well," Mandy went on, "most of the dolls made by the company that made us look like most of the children who live in their country. The company sold most of their dolls right there, and children like to have dolls who look like them."
"That's true of us, too," Mariah added. "The first year I was here, I asked Santa for a doll that looked like me!"
"Children also like dolls who look different from them," Mandy said, "because differences are interesting, but usually they want a doll who looks at least something like themselves first."
"Doll companies," Mandy explained, "make dolls to sell, not just because they think it's fun. If they can sell more dolls that look like you and me, Pippa, they make more of them."
"That makes Mariah very special," Pippa pointed out.
"True," Mandy agreed, "but Mariah is very special for other reasons, too, just as you are."
"You know," Mariah said, "if you think about it, everyone in our doll family is special in some different way, but we're all special together, as well. We get to teach things to lots of children, and maybe some grownups, too."
The three dolls thought about that.
"Let's tell The Writer we're glad we're in the stories," Pippa suggested.
Mandy laughed. "I think she knows," she said. "At least she does now."
Veronika: Götz Classic Kidz Vroni
Mandy: Götz Happy Kidz Katie 2015
Jolena: Götz Happy Kidz Lena in Aspen
Mariah: Götz Happy Kidz Mariah, "Chosen" from My Doll Best Friend
Marmalade: Purrrfect Cats from KTL
"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.
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