I need something that a six year old girl would consider important to her, though not neccessarily of any great financial value,small enough to carry around and which would cause her great distress if anybody sould steal it. Any suggestions?

My twelve-year old is still devoted to Flat Rabbit, a very small cloth bunny she was given at birth. At six she couldn't go to sleep without him, and took him everywhere that I allowed (which wasn't anywhere where he might get lost, as you can imagine!) I even bought similar rabbits and bears to have as back up, one of which became almost (but not quite) equally beloved. Rabbit is now on what's left of his third skin - his limbs and torso were once pink stripy cotton - and the plush on his ears and paws has mostly worn away. Grandma has knitted him a dressing gown to cover the holes, without which he looks like something from The Mummy

Other possibilities - a rag or cloth (my son's equivalent of Rabbit was an old cot sheet), favourite scarf, car, small wooden jumping-jack puppet, a big beautiful marble, favourite stone, bouncy ball, small china ornament, a feather (though they don't wear well). I know one child who adored a toothbrush and carried it about, just from love, not to clean her teeth.

Emma

My daughter’s similarly attached to ‘Petal’ her bean bag puppy dog.

She is so attached to that dog she’s inconsolable even when he has a wash, and if she sees him hanging on the line by his ears, you’d think her world had ended (then again I suppose that bit is understandable).

Grinder

Thanks both.

Hmmm...a small pebble found on a beach, perhaps? Or maybe a shell. Memento of a day at the seaside?

At that age, my children all went through a phase of being a sucker for stones - we always came home from a walk or the beach with pocket fulls of them. Perhaps a particularly unusual, pretty stone?

Andrea

Sticks and pockets full of leaves.

Grinder

I second the stone - there's a gorgeous Shirley Hughes story called Dogger about a little boy who finds a special pebble.

My son's six and still cuddles a stuffed tiger at night, although he would be too embarrassed to admit it in the daylight!
But he was never one for having a comfort toy he carried around, so can't help further.

What about a stone that has come off an old necklace? Something colourful and pretty but essentially worthless?

Huge, ridiculous 'ruby' ring from a cracker?

My cousin's daughter is seven and still carries around a small strip of the blanket that was in her cot hen she was a baby. It is grubby and tattered, but she clutches it tight in her little hand at all times. She cries her eyes out when her big sister steals it. It has been lost on 2 occasions, and both times, the entire household was still awake at 4 in the morning looking for it!