PAPER DOLLS

Reading a book to a preschooler or a child who hasn't yet learned to read isn’t a one-and-done deal. They’ll want you to read another one—or the same one, over and over again. If they insist on hearing the same book repeatedly, know that the child is seeking a sense of safety. They are drawn to familiar endings or perhaps have a temperament that doesn’t favor taking risks. I'm not writing this from a scientific standpoint, but rather from my own general observations.

On the other hand, children who love reading or listening to different books tend to be more adventurous and more inclined to go with the flow. We might even say this is a common trait of such individuals.

Sometimes, as we read children’s books to little ones, we should read them through the lens of our own age. Why am I saying this? Because books sometimes cease to be just tools aimed at children. As you read, you find yourself thinking:“Wait a minute… What is this book really saying?”What’s being conveyed is more than just what’s told to the child—so much more!

While a child connects with the words, the story, and the book through their own world, we—if we are truly reading with awareness—are accompanied by our own experiences. Our selective perception kicks in, and we read every line as if it’s a message.

The other day, I read a book that had me torn between asking whether it was my life experience or my selective perception speaking. I found myself unsure of where to place myself. The book is by Julia Donaldson, a world-renowned author known for her picture books for young children. It’s aimed at ages 4–7. My age, however, is somewhere between 40–50...

The book was published in 2012, with its latest edition in 2019. It’s called The Paper Dolls.

Our story follows a little girl with tiger slippers, stars hanging from her bedroom ceiling, who always loses her butterfly hairclip—but never forgets to feed her two goldfish. This little girl has a special skill: making paper dolls and giving them names. A whole string of paper dolls holding hands.

While playing with them one day, something happens: a big blue dinosaur roars, showing its giant claws, threatening to catch them.

But the paper dolls are never afraid.

They sing:

“You can’t catch us,

You can’t hop and skip like us.

We hold hands and never let go.

We’re not afraid of anything!

Everyone knows how brave we are!”

These paper dolls, strong and brave because they hold hands, face all sorts of dangers. They go on adventures, climb to the roof to watch the stars, encounter tigers and crocodiles—and always sing the same song:

“You can’t catch us,

You can’t hop and skip like us.

We hold hands and never let go.

We’re not afraid of anything!

Everyone knows how brave we are!”

One day, they go out to the garden, roll in the grass, smell the flowers... and suddenly face a threat unlike any other. Not a tiger, not a dinosaur, not a crocodile. A mischievous child appears—scissors in hand.“I’ll cut you all up and make confetti out of you!” he says.And he does.He snips all the dolls into little pieces and throws them into the wind.

The paper dolls don’t seem sad. They start singing again:

“We didn’t become confetti,

We weren’t scattered.

We hold hands and never let go.

We’re not afraid of anything!

Everyone knows how brave we are!”

Then, the pieces we thought were torn apart come back together.They fly straight into the little girl’s memory.The picture book continues like this—The little girl grows up, becomes a mother, and makes paper dolls for her own child. For a child, this is a sweet, adventurous story of a day in the life of a girl and her game.

But for us?

Let’s take a look through our grown-up lens:

Who or what do the paper dolls represent?Who are the tigers, dinosaurs, crocodiles that force them to proclaim their bravery in song?And more importantly, who is the one with the scissors—trying to destroy them entirely, turning them into "confetti" for a celebration?

When adults read this story, our selective perception links it to our own lives, current events, personal struggles. Our minds start to line everything up accordingly, don’t they?

Just like those visual illusions—where you see one image, then suddenly another emerges—this book transforms before us. It’s suddenly something entirely different. And it makes us ache a little, maybe feel a flicker of hope too, doesn’t it?

The moment the brave, hand-holding paper dolls are torn apart and turned into a supposed celebration by those who think they’ve made “confetti”… they couldn’t have been more wrong.

They didn’t become confetti.They didn’t scatter.They found one another again—To hold hands, to sing their brave songs.

With the hope of a children’s book

Through play

Through imagination

Zarife Tarakçı