Friday, December 15, 2017

American Girl Dolls

I've written on my blog previously how empowering American Girl Dolls are to young women.  Lexie still enjoys her American Girl dolls and she put Samantha as her number one wish for Christmas this year.  The reason she tells me is "Samantha is retiring and will be worth a lot of money in the future".  She plans on keeping her American Girl Doll collection for her daughter as her mom did with her Barbie Dolls.  Cheryl's Barbie collection is in excellent condition and Lexie takes very good care of her dolls too.

Each American Girl has an inspirational story to tell about their time and place in history.  They come with a novel the girls read.  Some of the stories have been picked up and made into a movie.  Lexie treasures the books as well as the dolls.  These dolls are CAD $165.00 per doll.  That includes the book, period clothes and sometimes other accessories.  They are not cheap and a lot of parents can't afford to buy more than one.  You can get their hair done at the American Girl salon or their ears pierced.  Earlier this year I took Lexie and Ashley to the AG store in the Indigo store at Broadway and Granville in Vancouver.  The lady didn't charge Ashley to get her dolls hair braided but ear piercing was $16 and that included the earrings!

I came across this article today:

A New York Girl Scout is giving hundreds of kids the chance to play with a childhood staple, the American Girl doll, by creating a lending program for the dolls at local libraries.

Olivia Reduto, 14, of Edgemont, New York, spent the past year raising nearly $800 so she could purchase six American Girl dolls and accessories for the dolls.
Olivia, a ninth-grader who has been in the Girl Scouts since the first-grade, then donated two dolls each to three libraries within the Yonkers Public Library system just north of New York City.
The dolls, which can be checked out for a three-week period, already have a waiting list after being introduced this fall.
“It’s been overwhelming,” Tara Somersall, head of children’s services at Riverfront Library in Yonkers, said of the response. “One girl who checked a doll out from us last week, she left here skipping.”
Somersall added of the appeal, “Because American Girl dolls come in different ethnicities, looking at these dolls, a lot of little girls can relate to them.”
Olivia studied the demographics of each individual library in order to make sure each American Girl doll she donated was a doll the library’s patrons could identify with. American Girl dolls come with their books to explain their life story and represent a variety of backgrounds and historical eras.
“I have three main points of my project,” said Olivia, who earned a Girl Scouts’ Silver Award for the project. “One is diversity, one is to get kids excited about history and reading and one is about income inequality.”
She continued, “So I chose different types of dolls from different cultures and ones that had a certain history and certain years and worked with the library to pick them out.”
Reading time at the public library
This is my favorite Christmas picture.
Lexie's first American Girl doll
You order it to look like you
Cheryl bought the doll and Maria bought Lexi's dress for Christmas

It's time for Aunty Acid