When toys come alive: narratives of animation, metamorphosis, and development

Abstract

In this extraordinary book, Lois Rostow Kuznets studies the role of toy characters in works ranging from older classics like Pinocchio, Winnie the Pooh, and The Velveteen Rabbit, through modern texts like The Mouse and His Child and the popular comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, to the latest science fiction featuring robots and cyborgs. He examines how toys can often take on a secret, sensual, even carnivalesque life of their own and how they tend to evoke a romantic nostalgia that supports the underlying values and hierarchies of a patriarchal society.