Toys Go Out: Timeless Theme, Original Cast

Toys Go Out taps into a classic childhood fantasy:  What do my  toys do when I’m not looking?  Winnie the Pooh, The Velveteen Rabbit, Pinocchio, Corduroy, Raggedy Ann and Andy are fixtures in the children’s lit canon for a good reason.  To the child at a certain point in development, it’s more unimaginable that the toys aren’t alive than that they are.  The “Pink Bear” my eight-year-old daughter has been dragging around since toddlerhood is much more to her than the now dishwater-gray polyester pile of flattened plush my husband and I see.

Emily Jenkins masterfully taps into that magical childhood mindspace and brings to life toys in the very same way a child does.  As promised on the cover, the book chronicles the adventures of a stuffed stingray, a “toughy little buffalo” named Lumphy, and “someone called Plastic.”  The book is organized into six stand-alone chapters.  But, reading them consecutively guarantees you fall in love with the hodgepodge cast.

Stingray is neurotic and overcompensates by being a know-it-all whose facts are questionable.  In the first chapter, when the principals are stuffed in their little girl’s backpack and don’t know where they are going, Stingray becomes convinced they are headed for the dump  (kind of like Stuart Little).  From that single assumption, she spirals to, “We’ll be tossed in a pile of old green beans and sour milk cartons…it will be full of garbage-eating sharks, and it will smell like throw-up.”  Stingray is the character who voices the fears that pop into the minds of most of us, but we’re too sensible or embarrassed to utter them.  She cracks third graders up.

Lumphy the buffalo, meanwhile, is a rugged cowboy with a vulnerable side.  He’s plagued by the fear that he’s not a real buffalo, and is given to aggression towards Stingray.  Why does Stingray get to sleep on the High Bed with the Little Girl while the rest of the toys are stuck on the floor?  In the chapter “How Lumphy Got on the Big High Bed and Lost Something Rather Good-looking,” he confronts Stingray but loses his tail as a result.

Plastic– the ball– has a total identity crisis.  What is a plastic, anyway?  Readers aren’t sure either, as she is not identified by anymore than her name.  Plastic can read, but the dictionary definition is inscrutable and the poor thing panics until the wise old bathroom towel Tuk Tuk sheds light on the situation.  “Plastic is just your name…It’s obvious, to anyone who knows anything, precisely what you are.”

Plastic:  “It is?”

Tuk Tuk: “I’ve seen balls before you, I’ll see balls after you.  A ball is what you are.  Tell me, do you bounce?”

Plastic: “Yes! I do?”

Tuk Tuk: “And do you roll?”

Plastic: “Yes!”  (She rolls around the bathroom until she smashes into the base of the toilet.)

Tuk Tuk: “And have you got front legs and back legs?”

Plastic: “Um, not exactly.”

Tuk Tuk: “And no fur whatsoever?”

Plastic: “No.”

Tuk Tuk: “That’s normal for a ball, you know.”

Plastic: “What about how I don’t have very much nose?”

Tuk Tuk: “You mean, how you don’t have any nose?”

Plastic: “Um . . . yes.”

Tuk Tuk:  “I have been around a long time.  I have never seen a ball with fur, or legs, or a nose.  You’re a ball, Plastic.  Don’t let anyone tell you different.”

Plastic:  “I’m a ball!  A ball, ball, ball!”

Jenkins’ storytelling is tender.

Absurd.

Perfectly childlike.

If you know me at all, you know I hold nothing against potty humor or slacker middle-school boys in books.  If those things get more youthful eyes scanning text, bring ’em on.  But there is something to be said for a good, old-fashioned story well told.  Something to be cherished, like an old, gray Pink Bear.