Wanted: Very large dollhouse in Mansfield.

The town is being presented with a wonderful opportunity to become the permanent home for one family's collection of at least 5,000 black dolls.

This venture, The Doll E Daze project of Mansfield sisters Debra Britt and Felicia Walker, would not only become a local treasure for residents and an icon of history and diversity, but a national attraction.

We urge Mansfield officials and property owners to think hard on how to make this dream come true. The sisters have hauled their treasure to numerous libraries over the years, but would like their dolls to have a home of their own. We'd like that, too.

Dolls have literally been part of the fabric of life for centuries, their remains found in long-ago graves of children.

But while they have often been crafted as playthings for children, that has not been their sole purpose. Fragile, decorative Bisque dolls have been used for display purposes, while others have been fashioned as icons representing fertility.

Some have been created as good luck symbols, some spend their lives as puppets. Russian nesting dolls or matryoshki can be carried in a pocket, an entire family stacked compactly inside a single peasant body.

But one of the best potential gifts provided by dolls is a reflection of who we are at a particular time in history. We just need to be certain that this gift is inclusive and not driven simply by marketing concerns.

The Betsy Wetsy Doll was the first to drink from a bottle and wet a diaper and became an instant success in the 1930s. But Betsy was blonde and blue-eyed, no model for children of other races who wanted to cuddle a doll that, well, looked like what they saw in the mirror.

Bratz dolls of today, with their provocative looks that have upstaged even curvy Barbie, reflect much of what is prevalent in the pop media, but just drew criticism in a new report by a American Psychological Association task force.

"Although these dolls may present no more sexualization of girls or women than is seen in MTV videos, it is worrisome when dolls designed specifically for four to eight year olds are associated with an objectified adult sexuality," the report said.

And so it goes. So what's in a doll? In the best of all worlds, a face that looks somewhat like ours.

The preponderance of dolls sold to retail are white, yet our culture has become too diverse to let this be the prevailing face and form.

Mansfield has the chance to become a mecca not only for those who are enthralled by the history of dolls but for those who would like to see their own race reflected. So where's that dollhouse going to be located?