For thousands of years children have played with dolls. Dolls have been found in the tombs of ancient Egypt. They have been found in the ruins of the cities of ancient Babylonia. Dolls have even been found in the graves of people who lived before anyone could write.
Many of the dolls American children play with look like real babies. They are as soft and cuddly as real babies, too. They can cry and say,"Mama." There are older dolls, too. Some can walk. Some have real hair that can be shampooed and curled. But probably no American girl loves her doll any more than a little girl of ancient Egypt loved her painted wooden doll with hair made of clay beads.
Even today the dolls 'children play with in some parts of the world look strange to children in other parts of the world. And homemade dolls are often very different from the dolls for sale in toy shops.
Materials of many kinds are used for dolls. Among them are plastics, rubber, china, wood, rags, and even cornhusks.
Some of the dolls in the toy stores of America were made in other lands. But many of them were made in the United States. The United States now makes more dolls than any other country in the world.
The stores that sell dolls usually sell doll houses and doll furniture, too. It is easy to spend hundreds of dollars for a doll house and its furniture. Probably the most famous doll house in the world is Colleen Moore's. Colleen Moore is a former movie actress. Her doll house is now in a museum in Chicago.
