By Emily Jenkins
Three toys belong to one little girl: a stuffed buffalo, a plush stingray, and a small rubber ball. When she isn't looking, they have a whole secret life full of small worries and small adventures.
Lumphy is a stuffed buffalo, StingRay is a plush stingray who's certain she knows everything, and Plastic is a small hard ball with no idea what she actually is. All three belong to a little girl, and across six linked stories they face the big questions of a toy's life: the terror of a first ride to school zipped into a dark backpack, whether the washing machine is a place you come back from, what happens when you get left behind, and, for Plastic, the mystery of what kind of thing she even is. It's warm and funny, and the worries are the kind a young child actually has.
These toys carry real, tender questions — am I loved, will I be washed away, what am I — and Emily Jenkins puts them in language a little richer than a six-year-old would reach for on her own. That's part of why it reads aloud so well. Because you're the one holding the book, your child can sit inside a small fear and come out the other side laughing. The chapters are short, the narrator is warm, and the three friends are different enough to tell apart right away.