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 honesty. Show all posts

Friday, June 21, 2024

How Emil Came to The Doll's Storybook, Part One

The dolls were studying and doing their homework when Veronika came into the room.

"Everyone, you need to listen to this," Veronika said, waving a piece of paper so they would see what she had.

The dolls gathered around Veronika. "It's a letter," she said. Then she began to read.

Here is what the letter said:

Dear Veronika and Cast of The Doll's Storybook,
I heard you were looking for another boy doll, and I am hoping you will choose me.

Before you accept me, you should know something about me. I'm not perfect. It isn't the fault of the factory where we were made. Sometimes these things just happen. Anyway, I wanted to be sure you knew about this before you decide.
First of all, I'm very nearsighted. That means I can't see very far from my nose. This isn't too bad, though, because my special glasses correct my sight to almost normal. I just need to wear my glasses all the time, except when I'm asleep.
My other problem is more serious. I'm almost deaf without my hearing aids. Fortunately, they were able to build my hearing aids into my glasses. I can talk with other dolls with no problem without my hearing aids, because, like other dolls, I talk by sharing my thoughts and listening to yours, but I need the hearing aids so I don't get hurt by things like cars and bicycles, and so I know when water is running and when an alarm goes off. I can't hear those things in my head without the hearing aids in my special glasses.
If you accept me as a new cast member, I promise to try very hard not to let these things make problems for you. I will also try to be the best doll I can be.

Sincerely,
Emil

"It's a good letter," Mandy said when Veronika had finished reading the letter.

Mariah, who had been looking over Veronika's shoulder, pointed at the letter. "There are no words misspelled," she said. "The ideas are easy to understand. He must be smart. He must have worked hard on the letter."

"He could have used Autocorrect," Billy said. "Autocorrect will fix the spelling."

"Yes," agreed Mariah, "but Autocorrect just changes something that isn't a word to something that is. It may not be the right word."
"Sometimes," put in Jolena, "Autocorrect gives you something silly, and it makes you laugh, and the letter looks as if he might have written it out instead of using a computer, and Autocorrect only works if you're using a computer or a phone."

"That's right," Mariah agreed. "You have to know if the word is the right one, and you still have to write what you want to say so it's easy to understand."
The dolls all smiled and nodded. They could remember times when they had seen this happen, and they agreed the letter looked as if it might have been written by hand. "Emil must have had to use a dictionary to check the spelling of all the words he wasn't sure of," Mariah concluded.

Charlotte had been very quiet. Now she had something to say. "I like that he sounds honest," she said.
The other dolls looked up at Charlotte.

"How do you see that in his letter, Charlotte?" Veronika asked.
"Well," Charlotte began, "he wants to be chosen, doesn't he? He could have just told us how wonderful he is, and how he's the best one for the job. He could have left out the part about his problems."

"You're right," Mandy said. "Then we wouldn't have known until he arrived, when it was too late."

Veronika turned to Billy. "What do you think, Billy?" she asked. "If we choose him, he will be your pal. You need to be satisfied with the choice."

"I like the letter," Billy said. "He sounds interesting. He says he isn't perfect, but none of us is perfect. He's different, but we're all different, even though we are alike in lots of ways."

"Like that our eyes don't close," Jolena said, "and we each have one hand with two fingers stuck together."

"It sounds to me," Billy said, "like he can do everything I like to do. I think we will have fun together."

"Let's vote on it," Veronika said, "unless anyone has something else to say."
The dolls shook their heads. They were ready to vote.
"All right," Veronika said, "who wants to choose Emil to be our new brother? Raise your hand if you do."
All the dolls raised their hands.

"Good," said Veronika. "It's unanimous (you-NAN-ih-mus)! That means we all voted the same. Then I don't have to ask who doesn't want Emil to be our new brother. I will write back and let him know."
"Veronika," Billy said, "there is something I would like you to ask him. You said his name like 'eh-MEEL.' How do we know it isn't 'EE-mul' or something else? It's an unusual name. Would you ask him how he says it so we can say it correctly when he comes?"

Veronika said she would ask. It was an important part of helping him feel at home when he arrived.

"When you write, please ask him what kind of food he likes to pretend to eat best," Jolena said. "I want to fix him his favorite food when he gets here."

"I want to find out," Mariah added, "what kinds of books he likes. We can go to the library right before he arrives and check out some things."
"Ask him if he can hear music," Charlotte said. "If he can, please find out what his favorite song is, so I can learn to play it for him on my violin."

"I have something for you to ask him," Mandy said. "Ask him if he needs to plug in his hearing aids at night or if his hearing aids use batteries, and please ask him if he needs anything else we might not think of."

That night, Veronika wrote a letter to Emil and told him that he had been chosen to be their new brother. She wrote that they liked his letter and thought he sounded nice. She asked him how to say his name. She used Autocorrect to make sure she had spelled the words correctly, and when Autocorrect changed something, she looked to see if Autocorrect was just being silly.

Veronika asked Emil what kind of food and books he liked best. She asked him if he could hear music with his special glasses, and if so, what was his favorite song. She asked him if he needed batteries or a charger for his glasses, or if there was anything else he might need. Then she added that they could tell he was special from his letter, and that was good. Then she printed off the letter and signed it. She put it into an envelope. She put a stamp on the letter.
Then all the dolls went to the mailbox together to mail the letter to Emil.

They could hardly wait. They knew Emil would be special.

We are all special, and so are you.

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

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.

Mariah: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Emil: Stories from The Doll's Storybook, Classic Tales Retold: Stories from The Doll's Storybook and Our Favorite Verses: Poems from The Doll's Storybook are available from BookBaby and other booksellers worldwide, such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Author's page on Amazon.

Royalties (net proceeds) go to support pediatric cancer research and treatment. If you don't get free shipping elsewhere, buy from Book Baby. Half of the price goes to charity (specific information available upon request). Autographed copies of all three books are available from the author. (Multiple books to the same address have a discount on shipping.) To inquire, email thedollsstorybook@icloud.com.

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

Friday, April 9, 2021

A Science Experiment, Part 1

"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. "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."

"Last week 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.

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 doesn'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.

Why would someone say they were good at something if they weren't? What do you think?

....to be continued.

Cast--
Billy: Götz Happy Kidz Lily at London
Emil: Götz Happy Kidz Emilia

Photo of rock candy by Tijana Drndarski on Unsplash