IRSCL Award Winner 1995

When Toys Come Alive:
Narratives of Animation, Metamorphosis and Development

by Lois Rostow Kuznets
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

When Toys Come Alive focuses on the role of toy characters (dolls, animals, mechanical objects) in older classics written for children or adults ( e.g.,The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, Pinocchio, Winnie the Pooh, The Velveteen Rabbit) through modern texts like The Mouse and His Child, popular cartoons, and science fiction. Kuznets uses a variety of intertextual critical approaches to show how toy characters act out deep human needs, desires, and fears, reflect socio-economic hierarchies, and raise existential issues of power and creativity.