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

TOYS AND GAMES
While mass-produced toys differ from folk toys made by children, they inter-
sect with children’s folklore in many ways. In 
Toys As Culture
(1986), Brian Sutton-
Smith analyzes toys’ functions in children’s daily lives. Toys express bonds and 
obligations between parents and children; they amuse and console children who 
are playing alone. In addition, toys become part of children’s identities and edu-
cation. Sutton-Smith explains that toys “are in 
marked contrast
with the every day 
world which they represent, or to which they refer, or in which they have their 
existence” (249). Children may follow cultural rules when they play with toys; 
alternatively, they may defy or subvert those rules.
Sometimes children make their own rules to supplement or replace the rules 
of commercial games. Players of the board game Monopoly, for example, can 
decide to place money paid in fines under the “Free Parking” space. The lucky 
person who lands on that space collects all the money that has accumulated there. 
Some groups of players allow certain kinds of cheating, but others frown on such 
expansion of the rules of the game.
Another game, the Parker Brothers’ Ouija board, became available in stores 
in 1966. Both before and after this game’s commercial release, children have 
followed rules learned from each other; they tend to take Ouija boards very seri-
ously. Variants of Ouija board usage have existed since the time of Pythagoras 
in ancient Greece. Contemporary American children tell each other to use the 
Ouija board carefully; they warn each other against using Ouija boards alone and 
suggest that throwing a Ouija board away may result in dangerous consequences. 
Films such as 
Witchboard
(1986) dramatize young people’s fears about results of 
improper Ouija board use.
An important source of traditional knowledge for children has been the series 
of “how-to” kits introduced by Klutz Inc. in the 1980s. All of these kits include 

---

142 Children’s 
Folklore
a book and a toy or craft materials. Klutz kits bring to mind the marketing strat-
egy of John Newbery’s 
Little Pretty Pocket-Book,
sold with a ball and pincushion 
in 1744. The Klutz 
Book of Jacks
(1988) includes a small bag of jacks, and the 
Cootie Catcher Book
(1998) comes with material for making paper fortune-tellers. 
Other books in the series show children how to play Chinese jump rope and to 
make paper airplanes and other toys.
Some commercially marketed card games have important folk elements. In 
the game of Spoons, for example, children rapidly pass cards around a circle; the 
first player who gets a complete set of cards of one suit grabs a spoon, and all the 
other players reach for spoons as quickly as possible. While it is possible to play 
Spoons with an old deck of cards and a handful of ordinary spoons, the com-
mercial Spoons game offers a new deck of cards, a pile of plastic spoons, and a list 
of rules. Another card game, Dutch Blitz, has been popular among Mennonite 
young people. This game involves a special deck of cards featuring pictures of 
farm implements and other objects. According to Andrew Lewis, some Men-
nonite families modify the game’s rules to suit their own preferences; others bake 
cupcakes decorated with frosting designs that match the cards (“Dutch Blitz”).
In contrast to card games, video games have alarmed parents and educators. 
Brian Sutton-Smith suggests that the video game, “a vehicle of solitary concentra-
tion,” “not only isolates the child; it possesses the child” (
Toys
75). Fear of their 
children becoming obsessed by video games has made some parents impose play-
time restrictions. Not all children play video games alone; some interact with sib-
lings and friends while playing. Video game tournaments organized by children 
offer exciting competition.
Some best-selling video games use patterns related to heroic quests in the tra-
ditional folktale. Nintendo’s “Super Mario Brothers” (1985), for example, sends 
the hero on a race through a mushroom kingdom to defeat enemies and rescue 
a princess. In the Nintendo 64 game “The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of 
Time” (1998), the lead character, Link, finds Princess Zelda in Hyrule Castle. 
Princess Zelda tells Link that he must find three sacred stones and take possession 
of the power-filled Triforce before the desert king Ganondorf gets it. In games 
like this one, the child player becomes a hero, fighting with evildoers and com-
pleting a complex quest.
DOLLS
Children have played with dolls made of wood, stone, clay, paper, bone, and 
other materials since prehistoric times. Dolls made by women at home have in-
cluded Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) “no face” cornhusk dolls and Appalachian apple-
head dolls. In many cultures, dolls are associated with good luck and prosperity. 

---

Contexts 143
According to Elizabeth Cameron and Doran Ross, Ashanti dolls in West Africa, 
for example, serve as playthings and promoters of fertility. Japanese 
daruma
dolls 
have no eyes when purchased; after the new doll’s owner makes a wish and finds 
that the wish comes true, it is time for the owner to give the doll an eye or eyes. 
Doll play has been well documented in Japan; the novel