For a doll contest at a party, a little girl chooses to enter a doll that seems least likely to win a prize.

This scholarly study of the centuries-long history of fornicatory dolls examines the enduring obsession with creating an idealized, silent female sexual object and the manifestations of this desire through the ages in mythology, literature, art, philosophy and science. This particular sexual impulse has been expressed in a great variety of forms such as statues, mannequins, sex dolls, and gynoids (robots). In particular this study focuses on the evolution of the sex doll through its original incarnation as a sack cloth effigy, through the marketing of inflatable dolls, to the current elaborate cyber-technology figures, in an attempt to discover the hidden drives and desires which fuel this ongoing fantasy of creating a perfect, powerless, silent partner.

I am Miss Kanagawa. In 1927, my 57 doll-sisters and I were sent from Japan to America as Ambassadors of Friendship. Our work wasn't all peach blossoms and tea cakes. My story will take you from New York to Oregon, during the Great Depression. Though few in this tale are as fascinating as I, their stories won't be an unpleasant diversion. You will make the acquaintance of Bunny, bent on revenge; Lois, with her head in the clouds; Willie Mae, who not only awakened my heart, but broke it; and Lucy, a friend so dear, not even war could part us. I have put this tale to paper because from those 58 Friendship Dolls only 45 remain. I know that someone who chooses this book is capable of solving the mystery of the missing sisters. Perhaps that someone is you.

A lonely doll named Edith finally finds friendship with two visiting teddy bears.