I’ve commented before on the Barbie vs. Bratz case, and followed it with interest, but even I was surprised with the severity of the final judgement:

If this is your first exposure to the story, let me summarize:

What was the crime? Getting paid by one company to design a doll, and then selling that doll to another company. Why is it a story? Because the Bratz dolls started beating the crap out of Barbie Dolls. What is the result? See above. But what I really want to know, now that they’ve won, is Mattel going to start selling Bratz?

How common this is, we illustrated in our last blog by printing the 150 year old poem by Charles Kingsley, The Lost Doll. Another wonderful take on ‘the lost doll’, is The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo, with the beautiful illustrations by Bagram Ibatoulline.

If you are not familiar with the story, Edward is a China Rabbit doll, who is accidentally lost at sea, found, and his adventures thereafter.

***WARNING and SPOILER*** This is not the book to read to a child who has lost a lovey or favorite doll recently. It may be too painful. And the fact that Edward does return at the end, albeit twenty years later, may inspire a false hope in your child as well.

But for every other doll lover, doll collector or parent who loves wonderful children’s books, we can’t recommend this book highly enough. It belongs on every doll lover’s bookshelf.

“You guys are life savers. My daughter had a cloth doll that was left in a rental car. She has cried for 4 days. Continue with the business of doll making. Your dolls are so darling. I am certain that she will cherish this new one forever.”

We had the right African American rag doll in our PattycakeDoll.com store; order placed and doll delivered… Happy Ending.

But not all lost baby doll stories have happy endings, unfortunately, throughout our years in the doll industry, we’ve heard lots of sad stories about ‘The Lost Doll.’

There’s even a somewhat famous poem called ‘The Lost Doll’ written by the English poet Charles Kingsley over a hundred years ago:

I once had a sweet little doll, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world;
Her cheeks were so red and white, dears,
And her hair was so charmingly curled.
But I lost my poor little doll, dears,
As I played in the heath one day;
And I cried for her more than a week, dears,
But I never could find where she lay.

I found my poor little doll, dears,
As I played in the heath one day;
Folks say she is terribly changed, dears,
For her paint is all washed away,
And her arms trodden off by the cows, dears,
And her hair not the least bit curled;
Yet for old sakes’ sake, she is still, dears,
The prettiest doll in the world.

So, if you’re the parent of a desperately unhappy child, and you have feverishly been searching the internet and stumbled onto this blog, what do you do?

Once your world finally settles back down, here are a couple of additional suggestions:

Hope that helped. Good Luck!