Stuffed Animals Are Pure Magic
My childhood conviction that stuffed animals are real has never entirely left me.
Their unseeing eyes gazed at the blossoming stars// They were nothing but fluff and fabric, buttons and stitching. —Pocket Bear, by Katherine Applegate
Look, of course I know that stuffed animals are nothing but fluff and fabric, buttons and stitching.
I mean, I’m a grown-up (arguably), with grown-up kids of my own.
But just between you and me, is it really such a huge leap to look at, say, a well-loved teddy bear and ask: I wonder what he’s feeling?
Maybe that’s the fiction writer in me at work. Maybe it’s my sentimental inner child. Or maybe it’s those eyes, those beady, buttony, googly eyes. Those eyes, imploring. Beseeching. Longing for a home. Hoping for love.
Kinda like all of us.
My childhood conviction that stuffed animals are real has never entirely left me. It’s the reason why I — an apparently rational woman in her seventh decade — should never be allowed to shop for Jellycats or Gunds without adult supervision.
But in my defense, I have science on my side. Seems that plushies (or floofies, or lovies, or teddies, or cuddlies, or whatever works for you) are actually therapeutic.
Not just for kids. For all of us.
I must say that after endless doomscrolling, there’s something deeply gratifying about coming across a study that actually validates a cherished guilty pleasure. Drink enough coffee and you’ll live forever! Binge-watch enough Friends reruns and you’ll sleep like a baby! Scarf down enough dark chocolate and your crow’s feet will vanish! (Okay, that last one awaits confirmation.)
And now — surprise! — it turns out that stuffed animals make excellent comfort objects... for adults.
Personally, I actually don’t sleep with stuffies, but that may be because I already share a bed with two dogs and a husband (three out of the four of us snore, just for the record) and the real estate is limited.
But I’ve seen first-hand that a special stuffed animal — a “transition object,” as psychologists would say — can be life-changing. And transition, these days, can indeed be challenging: from wakefulness to sleep, from home to school, from college to the Real World.
And most especially: from pained to comforted.
It was just such a comfort object — a 3 1/2 inch bear called a “mascot bear” — that led me to write my new middle grade novel, Pocket Bear. During the throes of World War One, a London company called J.K. Farnell (later they went on to inspire the famous literary bear, “Pooh”) manufactured tiny bears designed to fit into the breast pocket of a soldier. The eyes of each bear were placed a bit higher than would be expected. That way, when a soldier glanced down, he would see a token of love and hope — and maybe even a good luck charm — looking up at him.
The story of these little bears (there were cats as well) struck me as so poignant that I wanted to wrap a novel around it. And that’s how Pocket Bear came to be.
Soon after I began writing my novel, I learned about a company in London called “Loved Before.” Billing themselves as the “sustainable soft toy adoption agency,” their motto was “Saving the planet, one teddy at a time.” I loved the idea of recycling toys. It appealed to my sentimental side. But it also made a great deal of eco-sense. According to The Washington Post, “About 80 percent of stuffed animals and other toys worldwide are eventually thrown away, making up 6 percent of plastics in landfills across the globe.” Loved Before toys are now available in the U.S. at Bloomingdale’s.)
What especially touched me about these stuffies was the little biography each displayed, often prompted by the donor’s input. (The spiffy brown bear named “Jerome” I purchased at Selfridge’s is, it turns out, “a board game enthusiast with a knack for losing every time.”)
In Pocket Bear, I created a place called “The Second Chances Home for the Tossed and Treasured,” where a young girl, a Ukrainian war refugee named Dasha, nurses back to health the toys her kleptomaniac cat brings home so they can find new love. The many toys at Second Chances are overseen by a soldier bear named “Pocket,” a diminutive toy with a huge heart.
Each night, Pocket whispers the same benediction, gentle as a lullaby, hopeful as a prayer, to the homeless toys he oversees: May tomorrow bring you the second chance you each deserve.
And maybe that is what makes our love for stuffed animals so universal. They love us, and we love them, without question. They are as real as we need them to be. They look into our eyes — our imploring, beseeching eyes — and they ask: I wonder what you’re feeling?
And then, perhaps, they add: You deserve a second chance.
I don’t need a scientific study to tell me what a gift that is.
Katherine Applegate is the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of beloved and award-winning books for young readers, including Odder,Home of the Brave, Crenshaw, Wishtree, Willodeen, and The One and Only Ivan, for which she won the Newbery Medal. She is also the author of the Animorphs series, and a beginning reader series, Doggo and Pupper, illustrated by Charlie Alder. Katherine Applegate lives in Southern California with her family.
