Children’s Folklore Recent Titles in Greenwood Folklore Handbooks Myth: a handbook

Th
e Tale of Genji,
at-
tributed to Lady Murasaki in the early eleventh century, describes girls’ play with 
dolls and dollhouses. Each year in March, Japanese girls celebrate the traditional 
Doll Festival, also known as Girls’ Day.
Europe became a center of doll manufacturing in the fifteenth century, with 
Germany and France taking the lead. At the beginning of the twentieth cen-
tury, Josephine Scribner Gates’s “live doll” stories encouraged little girls to treat 
their dolls as if they were live human beings; her books became popular among 
American girls. After World War I, American doll manufacturing increased; the 
invention of plastics made dolls cheaper and more widely available in the second 
half of the twentieth century. Most contemporary accounts of children’s doll play 
describe creative play with relatively inexpensive plastic dolls.
Barbie dolls, first marketed in 1959, have become icons of American culture. 
Mary F. Rogers, author of 
Barbie Culture
(1999), states that Barbie has “a mutable, 
protean, impression-managing, context-bound self whose demeanor shifts from 
situation to situation and from role to role” (137). Since Barbie has innumerable 
outfits and accessories, she encourages children’s acquisition of more and more 
things. The antidote to this galloping consumerism is “folk Barbie,” explicated in 
Jeannie B. Thomas’s wonderful book 
Naked Barbies, Warrior Joes, and Other Forms 
of Visible Gender.
Thomas observes that Barbie takes many roles during children’s 
doll play: “She shops, goes to college, makes sushi, has sex with aliens, gets preg-
nant, and works at jobs ranging from babysitter to dentist to stewardess to archi-
tect. She participates in race-car driving, camping, dating, swimming, mountain 
climbing, and movie watching” (134). Some children have removed their Barbie 
dolls’ heads and baked the heads in ovens or flushed them down the toilet (114).
Like Barbie, G. I. Joe action figures have inspired creative play. It is important 
to note that gender stereotyping had a role in the marketing of G. I. Joe figures, 
which came out in 1964. Intended primarily for boys, these plastic figures em-
phasized “action” rather than the hairstyles and special outfits that characterized 
Barbie. Jeannie B. Thomas notes that G. I. Joe’s large biceps reflect American so-
ciety’s admiration for masculine power (119). Thomas’s interviews with children 
who have played with Barbie and G. I. Joe reveal that folk games give both dolls a 
broader range of roles than their creators had in mind. Sometimes G. I. Joe takes 
the role of Barbie’s son; other times he serves as a critic for fashion shows starring 
Barbie and her consort Ken (134 –35).
Mass-produced American Halloween costumes have given kids the opportu-
nity to dress up as Barbie, G. I. Joe, Supergirl, Superman, Harry Potter, Wonder 

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144 Children’s 
Folklore
Woman, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other well-known figures. It is not 
unusual for babies and dogs to wear Halloween costumes of their own. Children 
begin participating in Halloween by wearing costumes their parents have bought 
or made, but as they get older, they may choose to make costumes that reflect 
their own imaginations.
Some dolls have associated themselves with horror legends in interesting ways. 
Hasbro’s “My Buddy” doll, released in 1985, resembles the “Chucky” doll that 
becomes a demonic killer in the horror movie 
Child’s Play
(1988). These movies 
have become cult classics, with the hilarious 
Bride of Chucky
(1998) generating a 
line of bride dolls that has delighted both children and adults.
More peaceful and aesthetically appealing dolls have come from the American 
Girl doll company, founded by educator Pleasant Rowland in 1985. This com-
pany offers historically accurate facsimiles of American children’s clothes, pets, 
and playthings from the colonial era to the present. Each doll, which comes with 
a set of books about her adventures, is described as the “star of her story.” Or-
phaned Samantha, who represents the Victorian era, has a three-wheeled bicycle, 
California baby boy dressed as Benjamin Bunny for 
Halloween, 2006. Photograph by Buzz Hays.

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Contexts 145
a tea-tin lunchbox, a doll pram, and ice skates. Addy, enslaved on a plantation 
in the 1860s, has a tin pail lunchbox and ice cream party treats. Josefina, whose 
family owns a ranch in New Mexico in the 1820s, has a weaving loom, riding 
boots, an adobe oven, and a niña doll, as well as Christmas accessories that reflect 
Hispanic holiday traditions: two strings of red chili peppers and a wooden lan-
tern for 
La Posada
processions. And Kaya, a Nez Perce girl growing up in 1764, 
has a horse with a special saddle, a porcupine-quill necklace, a baby doll with 
cradleboard, and huckleberries and camas roots inside a leather pouch. Through 
these heirloom dolls, children learn about folkways of children from diverse eth-
nicities and historical periods.
Some twenty-first-century dolls have generated controversy. Bratz Dolls, first 
manufactured in 2001, have wide eyes, tiny noses, and feet attached to high-
fashion shoes; much of their clothing looks alluring. Wildly popular in Spain, 
France, Israel, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, these dolls have 
alarmed parents, teachers, and scholars of childhood. In 2007 the American Psy-
chological Association’s “Task Force on Sexualization of Girls” commented that 
Bratz dolls, which wear fishnet stockings, miniskirts, and feather boas, sexually 
objectify young women.
In play therapy, dolls help children express their needs. Virginia M. Axline’s 
Dibs in Search of Self
(1986) explains how a little boy overcomes adjustment dif-
ficulties through regular doll play in his therapist’s office. 
Play and Intervention
(1994), edited by Joop Hellendoorn, Rimmert van der Kooij, and Brian Sutton-
Smith, covers a wide range of therapies involving dolls and toys. One of this 
book’s essays, Jerome L. Singer’s “Scientific Foundation of Play Therapy,” explains 
that the “cognitive revolution of twentieth-century psychology resulted in a wide 
range of interventions” (27). Psychologists have developed academic play pro-
grams and play therapies for children with autism and other special needs.
In his 2008 essay “To Play or Not to Play,” Sutton-Smith states, “In the 21st 
century virtually any activity is considered superior to doing nothing.” Noting 
educators’ preference for all that seems “useful,” Sutton-Smith argues that “play has 
its 
own
purposes that are more fundamental.” Studying these purposes will pro-
vide interesting and important work for future folklorists of childhood.