In 1950s America, Black doll named Chevella awakens in the window shelf of Mrs. Lovey's Irressistible Toys and Candy Store with the ability to speak, feel, move, and see at night. The Original Enchantment binds the toys' agency during the day. Chevella enters the social life of the other toys in the shop, which include 36 white Missy Ann dolls, each dressed differently. In order to be picked by a human in the store, each doll must also choose a human using its "doll seed." According to a unicorn toy named Caruthers, toys were created by the Wind Mother and the Father of Offerings to take care of humans. The Missy Ann dolls taunt Chevella for not understanding the laws of doll sentience, and question whether she has a doll seed or the ability to be chosen by a human at all because she is modeled after "a Negro." The Missy Anns are known to be divisive amongst the other toys in the shop. Marie, a French doll, encourages Chevella to find and develop her doll seed. Other Missy Anns antagonize Chevella by warning her that she might have to "jump doll"—return to being an inanimate doll—like a previously heartbroken and unchosen doll. Months pass without Chevella finding a human partner. Chevella tries to enter the consciousness of one promising man, but when she places her image in his head she finds him peeing on it subconsciously. Chevella is humiliated and shocked. One day a Black man walks past the store and looks at Chevella, causing Chevella to feel a twinge behind her knee—the location of her doll seed! Despite her discovery, Chevella loses her concentration when a Missy Ann doll teases her; Chevella loses the man. The Missy Ann dolls continue to bully her throughout the weeks. One day the Black man, Benny, returns to the shop to buy Chevella. Speaking to Chevella, the man reveals that he's a graduate student in psychology under Kenneth Clark, a later Civil Rights champion and famed researcher known for his experiments on racialized beauty standards. The next year, Chevella is put through psychological experiments. Young children, Black and white, are given the choice between Chevella and a white doll; they regularly choose the white doll, Emma, over Chevella. Chevella is frustrated because Benny and Kenneth both seem to be hoping that the children choose Emma over Chevella. The researchers shake their heads disapprovingly whenever a child choses Chevella, as the data goes against their hypothesis that beauty standards are anti-black. Kenneth tells Benny that their research will be used in a desegregation case in the Supreme Court (Brown v. Board of Education). Five years later, Benny is killed in a car accident and Kenneth puts Chevella in a thrift shop. Feeling betrayed by her lifetime of rejection by Black children, Chevella attempts to use her doll seed to attract a white girl named Katherine Ann but the girl's mother admonishes her for wanting Chevella. The thrift shop owner Minnie cuts a deal with the girl's mother, and Chevella is purchased. Katherine Ann brings Chevella to school and gets taunted by her classmates for having a "colored" doll. After a fight breaks out, Katherine Ann is put on recess suspension for bringing Chevella to school. Ten years later, in 1968, Katherine Ann died of a drug overdose. In the years following the recess incident, Katherine Ann hid Chevella away and moved to New York with her, sometimes consulting her on her art and life's dreams. Katherine Ann's mother sorts through her dead daughter's belongings; she finds Chevella, and in a rage tears her arms off and smashes her into the floor, blaming Katherine Ann's downfall on buying Chevella. Chevella ends up in a dump where she reunites with two Missy Anns who are also in poor shape. With their help, Chevella "jumps doll" and "dies" to return with her previous human loves, Benny and Katherine Ann. She is transported to a dream place where human souls are made.