Four Sasha displays turned a library cabinet into a storybook exhibition, paired with a 24-sheet trail and nursery rhyme singalong.
From festival displays to a library exhibition
The dolls had already been on display at a local Sasha Festival the year before. Their sturdy backdrops took considerable work to make, and the family chose to keep the figures dressed and the scenes assembled at home. Laura, Miranda, Nicholas James and Timothy remained in costume while their owner considered a new way to share them with the community.
Ideas came from earlier Dress a Sasha projects. One 2024 entry, inspired by Petrana’s English Garden theme, illustrated a favourite storybook; another, created by the owner’s daughter, recreated a Pre-Raphaelite painting based on an English legend. The family also had entries from the 2012 English Sasha Festival, including a scene based on the local nursery rhyme “Ride a Cock Horse.”
A talk about the displays and Sasha Morgenthaler’s dolls could have explained their storytelling potential, but the owner wanted children to take part. The result was a small exhibition accompanied by a literary treasure trail, designed to invite visitors to follow the stories and perhaps make scenes of their own using dolls, props and toys.
Four scenes, carefully fitted into the cabinet
The local library offered a display cabinet usually used for certificates and trophies belonging to the town’s gardening group. The group kindly cleared its items for what was expected to be a two-week run. Two of the planned scenes featured gardens, making the cabinet a fitting home for the exhibition.
Installation took place the day before the festival opened. The library manager and exhibitor removed the cabinet’s heavy glass shelves, adjusted the support rods to create more height, returned one shelf and stored the other safely. Preparation had also meant tracking down pieces for the older scenes and replacing a soft toy cow and toy dog that the family no longer owned for “Hey diddle diddle.” There was a wardrobe wrinkle, too: the long black boots used in a 2012 outfit had been reused in 2024, so the boots had to be swapped back.
Once the four scenes were set, library staff responded warmly. The manager helped put trail clues on the walls, and visitors could fill in an answer sheet and enter it in a box for a prize draw after the trail ended.
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| Hey diddle diddle - updated from the 2012 Dress a Sasha assembled by my then 8 year old daughter |
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| Fair Rosamund - 2024 Dress a Sasha by my daughter |
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| Fair Rosamund and Hey diddle diddle on the upper shelf |
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| Ride a Cock Horse - my updated 2012 Dress a Sasha display |
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| Ride a Cock Horse |
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| Reuben as the ostler |
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| A Secret Garden - my 2024 Dress a Sasha |
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| Mary, Dickon and Colin in the Secret Garden |
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| The Secret Garden and Ride a Cock Horse in the display cabinet |
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| Library books of nursery rhymes, dolls houses and The Secret Garden |
A trail that brought children back
The library manager’s local outreach led a junior school to bring a class to the exhibition as part of a creative project. Another class visited the following week, after the literary festival had finished. Parents then asked for the displays and trail to stay available as a half-term activity. The festival organisers, gardening group and town council agreed to the extended stay. One gardening group member later wrote that she and her 12-year-old grandson had both enjoyed completing the trail.
The cabinet lights were repaired soon after installation by a member of the gardening group and then checked for safe use. The trail itself stretched across the library, with sheets on walls and windows, numbered from 1 to 24. The sequence even directed visitors upstairs for the next clues.
Two displays based on nursery rhymes also shaped a special library story time. The exhibitor mentioned that the family’s street organ already played six nursery rhymes, and brought it in for children, parents and grandparents to sing along. They added other rhymes that weren’t yet in the organ’s repertoire. The session left the exhibitor’s husband with nine more tunes to arrange.
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| Start of the literary trail Sheets 1, 2 and 3 |
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| Sheets 4 and 5 |
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| Sheets 6 and 7 |
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| Sheets 8 and 9 |
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| Sheet 10 |
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| Sheets 11 and 12 |
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| Sheet 13 |
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| Sheets 14, 15 and 16 then instructions to go upstairs for the next sheets |
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| Sheet 17 |
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| Sheet 18 |
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| Sheets 19 and 20 |
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| Sheets 21, 22, 23 and 24 on the wall beside the display cabinet |
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| The display cabinet from the side |
Five weeks in the library
After half term, the exhibitor and her daughter took down the scenes and returned the cabinet shelves to their original positions, ready for the gardening group’s certificates and trophies. The final photographs were taken just before removal, after five weeks on view. They show the cabinet lit with “Fair Rosamund” and “Hey diddle diddle,” the “Secret Garden” alongside “Ride a Cock Horse,” and the open cabinet before the scenes came down.
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| Fair Rosamund and Hey diddle diddle with the lights on in the cabinet |
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| The Secret Garden and Ride a Cock Horse just before we removed them from the cabinet |
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| The display cabinet open and lit up just before we removed the displays |
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| Me with the doll display just before we removed it today |
The project also connected the dolls to the library’s regular story time, which ran weekly with special literary themes during the festival. Planning is already under way for another display and trail next year, possibly drawing on the family’s 2017 and 2022 Sasha Festival Dress a Sasha entries.
