Just Dolls? (IF You Know?)

Just Dolls?

“It is the glory of The Most High to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings is to search out a matter.”

Proverbs 25:2

Just dolls?

Or more to it?

IF You Know?

If You Know?: Cruse, Sheryle: 9798272042019: Amazon.com: Books

The Happy Family? (IF You Know? Book Excerpt)

…The Happy Family?

When I was five, I received three dolls as a Christmas present. But what might raise a curious eyebrow about these dolls was their skin color: black.

While going through still more old photos, I stumbled across two images of me holding them.

I was first given the white “Sunshine Family” version of these dolls a year earlier. And I remember playing with them often.

So, was that the reason why Mom gave me the black “Happy Family” dolls, one year later?

Or did Mom decide I needed these dolls?

And, if that was the case, why, exactly, did she feel I needed them?

Now, upon having questions about my identity and my family’s identity, provoked even further by Bliss Broyard’s book, “One Drop,” suddenly, these dolls took on more importance.

Again, it comes back to context.

I was a little girl, raised by a “white family,” living in a “small, white, rural town.” At that time, no black people lived IN that small town. NONE. All my little white playmates played with white baby dolls and white Barbie dolls…

Copyright © 2026 by Sheryle Cruse