Customer Reviews

Dollmakers and Their Stories: Women Who Changed the World of Play

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Though Dollmakers And Their Stories: Women Who Changed The World Of Play by Krystyna Poray Goddu was written for a younger readership and can appeal from middle school grades on up, Dollmakers And Their Stories is reviewed here and strongly recommended for adult readers for its fine applicability to anyone of any ages who is just beginning to collect dolls. Girls have played with dolls since ancient times and the dolls have changed over the centuries: selected stories of courageous dollmakers who produced Barbie, Madame Alexander collectibles, the Sasha line and more provide wonderful stories of strong entrepreneurs and feminists who displayed both business and political skills in producing dolls in times when women didn't ordinarily work outside the home or the family farm.

[This review was first published in the "Ephrata (Pa.) Review."]

The author, founding editor of "Dolls" magazine, argues that it's been women, strong entrepreneurial women, who have designed the dolls that children over the past century have loved, and continue to love. Here she tells the stories of five of these women, along with profiles of six contemporary dollmakers.

The inability to find dolls to meet their own daughters' needs inspired several dollmakers. Kathe Kruse, for example, may have never designed dolls if not for her 2-year-old who, after a brother was born, asked her mother for "a child like yours." The lavish porcelain dolls available in Germany in the early 1900s were hardly babylike. It took Kruse years of experimentation to find a design for a realistic baby doll. The company she founded still produces dolls that inspire tenderness and care.

Ruth Handler created Barbie only after noting how her preteen daughter and friends played for hours with paper dolls representing adult women, creating imaginary worlds for them, which Ruth viewed as the girls' rehearsal of possibilities for their own futures.

In each of the five bios the author emphasizes how each woman became an entrepreneur, struggling to bring her inspirations to life and breaking ground in a men's world. These stories will appeal to doll lovers. They will also inspire and instruct creative young women embarking on their adult lives.

Little girls love dolls such as Barbie and American Girl but do they know they got started. This book has 5 short biographies of doll makers and how they came up with the ideas for their dolls. Also included in the book is a section on the future of dolls and where the author feels the industry is headed today.