Tag: children’s literature

  • Meet Julie

    Meet Julie

    No turning back now

    Author: Megan McDonald

    It’s the 1970s. Bust out your mood rings and pet rocks!

    The American Girl series is starting to feel more decades day at school and less about American history. Yes, it is important to remember that recent history is still history for kids, but it’s not like Julie’s mood ring is something kids would never see today. Heck, kids today still see fights about who gets to play on the gendered sports teams… it just looks different in 2025.

    Julie’s personality

    We are introduced to Julie as she is doing cartwheels. She is spinning, her life is turing upside-down. Like the other American Girl introductions this is Julie’s theme: Jukie is tumbling through the world looking for the right way up. Julie is struggling for identity. She doesn’t even know her favorite color!

    Julie’s parent’s just got divorced, she’s moving and starting a new school, it’s the 1970s! Any of those alone can shake up your self-image, and Julie has to deal with all of it. She is very unsure of who she is and where she belongs in the world. Julie is also a Gen Xer, so not feeling like she belongs is to be expected.

    Julie’s Family

    Julie’s Mom is introduced to us taking down a hanging geranium plant. Geraniums symbolize folly. Is this telling us that the marriage was folly, or that Mom is a foolish person?

    I like the representation of Julie’s parents. Something that bothers me in children’s media is when divorced parents are so united that you have to wonder why it didn’t work out… It’s very clear why Julie’s parents are divorced. Her dad is a straight laced kind of guy, her mom is a hippie. I get why it didn’t work out.

    Basketball

    So I did the math, Julie would have been born in 1965, and according to the generally accepted generation breakdowns, that is the very first birth year of Gen X. Like most Gen Xers, Julie is a latch-key kid. Julie takes up basketball as a way of avoiding the empty house. Julie’s fight to get on the basketball team feels very Gen X, she refuses to blindly trust authority figures, and she questions everything.

    I think the school should have started a girl’s basketball team. Julie being the ONLY girl on the team is going to cause her social problems. She can’t bond with her teammates in the locker room, and she will be ostracised by the other girls. The other girls will be jealous that Julie found a way to stand out, and being yourself and standing out is not how you make friends as a pubescent girl. Yeah, girls are like that.

    Best Friends

    Speaking of girls why did Ivy apologize? She just didn’t want to spend her whole Saturday getting signatures for Julie’s petition. Julie never asked Ivy to help her, she just blindly assumed Ivy would. Poor Ivy was dragged around the streets of San Francisco, and her best friend Julie was completely clueless about Ivy’s obvious discomfort… I seriously want to know why Ivy owes Julie an apology.

    All in all Julie is a fun character, but you can start to see the cracks in the original American Girl concept starting to form: it’s not like Julie is wearing a shift and stays, she wears blue jeans and tanktops, the cut and colors might be different, but kids still see those cloths today. Julie’s world just isn’t so different from the world today that tactile play (dolls) will help kids understand it.

  • Meet Kaya

    Meet Kaya

    Magpie!

    Author: Janet Shaw

    In my ongoing quest to reread the American Girl series, we have reached Kaya. Maybe it’s just the horse, but I get a Felicity vibe from Kaya. I have this idea that if Felicity and Kaya met, they would be instant friends, talking horses and making friendships bracelets… or trigger happy Ben would shoot poor Kaya…

    Anyway, American Girl gave Janet Shaw the opportunity to redeem himself from the cringy depiction of native americans in Kirsten’s series by letting her write Kaya’s. How did that go?

    Kaya’s Personality

    Kaya is very impulsive. Kaya clearly craves attention, and will grasp at anything to feel accomplished. She loves her horse, but she is desperate to prove themselves as a horsewoman, a runner, and a swimmer. I want to give poor Kaya a hug and tell her she is valuable just as she is and she doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone.

    Kaya’s Family

    I am trying to remind myself that this story takes place in a culture and setting that is very different from my own… but I still don’t like Kaya’s parents.

    Kaya’s grandmother chastises her “You’re not a little girl any longer. You are growing up.” She’s nine. I know the modern western world often coddles our children too much, but I wouldn’t ask a nine year old to babysit two four-year-olds. It’s just too big an ask in my opinion.

    Kaya is the stereotypical forgotten middle child. She fluctuates between responsible and impulsive. She wants to be a daddy’s girl, the opposite of her big sister Brown Deer, but she’s not a carefree wild child like her little brothers. The text wants me to think Kaya’s main problem is pride, but I think Kaya’s main problem is that she wants attention and she’s not getting it.

    It seems to me that Kaya is a normal nine year old girl, she doesn’t deserve to be switched or called names just for being a nine year old. I understand the point Whipwoman makes about how with thier way of life the stakes for screw up can be life or death, I just think that, developmentally, it’s too much to expect of a nine year old.

    Symbolism of Speaking Rain

    I see Speaking Rain as more of the Yin to Kaya’s Yang. She is the part of Kaya that focuses on caring for others, family and loyalty, while hot headed Kaya focuses on defining herself and being seen, Speaking Rain is the part of Kaya that Kaya can’t see… hence the symbolism of her being blind… Or maybe I’ve studied too much Greek Mythology.

  • Meet Kit

    Meet Kit

    It’s not fair

    This is my first time reading about Kit, so I find myself focusing more on the parents… I have thoughts, but first let’s talk about Kit herself:

    Kit’s personality

    Kit is introduced writing a “newspaper” for her dad. This is the least relatable intro of the American Girls in my mind.

    Kit is a tomboy. Kit aspires to be a reporter… but she’s the last to learn the really important things. She’s obnoxiously judgmental about people, especially Stirling.

    Kit’s parents

    I hate Kit’s parents! The other girl’s parents were mostly mature, loving, caring people. Kit’s parents have unresolved issues and it is compromising Kit’s well being. Kit’s dad didn’t tell his family that their business was in trouble until the day before he closed the business! He let his wife go on spending money on things like redecorating Kit’s room, and spent his son’s college money while letting him think he was going to college. He didn’t even give his son the chance to earn the money for college on his own! Kit’s parents are making awful financial decisions.

    I just don’t like how Kit’s mom doesn’t seam to care about her daughter’s personality or how Dad is keeping secrets. Kit and her brother Charlie deserve more consideration.

    I’m a Millennial: massive layoffs, stockmarket drama, people tricked into buying homes they can’t afford… I don’t have to imagine this stuff, it’s the only world I’ve known! I don’t have to stretch my imagination very far to put myself in thier place, and I don’t like them.

    Next up: Meet Julie

  • Meet Josefina

    Meet Josefina

    What an adventure

    Author: Valerie Tripp

    Josefina’s personally

    Josefina is the youngest of four sisters, yet we see she is the peacemaker between her sisters.

    According to birth order personality theory, it is rare for the youngest to be the peacemaker. So it’s interesting that Josafina has taken this role on, apparently since the death of her mother.

    Josefina seams to struggle with anxiety about the goats. I’ve never had goats myself, but I’ve heard they can be bullies.

    Symbolism

    There are some great symbols in this book. The primrose has a number of meanings, I think the most relevant are childhood innocents, healing, and material love. That almost summarizes the whole book!

    Josafina is afraid of goats… but is she really? I’m no mental health professional,  but I do know that anxiety and hypervigilance are common reactions to trama. I think that Josafina is projecting her fears about the world onto the goats. The world is everywhere, an unmeasurable danger, but Josefina can know where the goats are, and while she can’t avoid the world, she can avoid some goats.

    We have reached the end of the American Girls I knew as a kid. Next we read the first girl released after I aged out of the series: Kit

  • Meet Addy

    Meet Addy

    Freedom’s got its cost

    Author: Connie Porter

    In my on going mission to reread all the American Girl “Meet” books, we have finally reached Addy.

    The Addy Controversy

    Addy was Pleasent Company’s first non-white character and I know some people object to Addy’s story being set in the civil war. Some argue that Pleasent Company couldn’t think of any other story to tell with a black girl. According to the American Girl Wiki, it was an intentional choice by the advisory committee to tackle the most painful part of American history head on. I don’t know if that is true, what I do know is Connie Porter wrote an amazing story!

    I still have a lot of American Girls to “Meet” and we are rapidly approaching the end of characters I remember from my childhood, but I remember being moved by Addy’s story in a way that the other girls just didn’t emotionally impact me.

    Addy’s Personally

    All the American Girls are introduced doing something timeless in a setting that grounds us in there time period. Kirsten is playing dolls, on the deck of the ship taking her to America. Felicity is running an errand for her mother. Addy is listening to her parents talking at night.

    We are told that Addy feels safe surrounded by her family, and this sence of safety gets ripped away.

    Addy is highly intelligent, and that leads to her ability to adapt to her surroundings.

    Throughout the book, Addy develops an internal locus of control, or as Papa puts it “freedom in your head.” This allows Addy to adapt a new sence of safety as the story progresses.

    Symbols in Addy’s story

    There are a lot of references to bugs in Addy’s story. Addy hears crickets at the beginning of the story. She is famously force-fed worms by the overseer on the plantation. Addy even pulls a leech off of her skin after crossing a river.

    In the last chapter, once Addy and Mama are safe, the references to bugs stop. I think the bugs are there as a visceral representation of slavery itself. It’s an age appropriate means of touching on the cruelty and violence inflicted on people in slavery. The series isn’t going to show Addy having the overseer’s “worm” forced down her throat, but it can and does show him forceing real worms down her throat.

    Addy Doll

    I have avoided talking about the dolls or tie-in merchandise because I want to focus on the stories, but I want to point it out with Addy because of how well written it is.

    All the American Girl dolls had a “Meet Accessories” bundle you could buy that included a hat, a bag, handkerchief, a piece of jewelry, and money from the time period. (Kirsten didn’t need money on the prairie so she got a spoon)

    Everything in Addy’s meet collection is used in this story. If you aren’t paying attention to the ONE refrance in the book to Felicity’s amber necklace you can be forgiven for not noticing it on the doll… or knowing it’s actually a coral necklace. But Addy’s shell necklace is a family heirloom that gives her courage, her coin is a symbol of the price she must pay for freedom. The handkerchief and water jug are the survival tools she and Mama use in their escape. I don’t think Kirsten’s spoon even gets a mention in the text!

    Addy is a according to the Straus-Howe Generational Theory, Addy is a member of the Progressive Generation (along with Kirsten’s baby sister and Samantha’s Grandmother.) This generation was defined by rebuilding America in the wake of the Civil War, and they adapted to the needs around them. We definitely see this adaptability with Addy.

    Future Theory

    I aways liked the idea that the American Girls all co-exist in the same universe. Like if Addy’s family had gone to Minnesota instead of Pennsylvania they might have met the Larsons. The woman who helped Mama and Addy get to Philadelphia is named Caroline, and assuming she’s about 60… let’s just remember Miss Caroline when we get to Meet Caroline.

    But that won’t be for a while, next up I am reading Meet Josefina.

  • American Girl Book Club

    American Girl Book Club

    I’m reading the American Girl books in the wrong order… join me!

    I am on a quest to “meet” every girl in the American Girl franchise. 14 of these young ladies invite us to meet them,

    For those of you who are new to the American Girl franchise or who only know the collectable doll line: American Girl used to be a franchise focused on telling stories about girls throughout American history. It did this through a series of books and dolls to ‘bring history to life’… hey, for a nine year old, dolls may as well be real life

    The series was created by Pleasent Company which released six girls. Two more girls, Kit and Kaya, were in pre-production when the brand was bought by Mattel in 1998. Kit and Kaya were released in the early 2000s, and Mattel has released several more girls over the years.
    So let me define exactly what I mean when I say I’m going to “Meet” the American Girls. I am going to read every book in the Historical Characters lineup that kicks off a book series for the girl and has the title “Meet ___” so while there is the Girls of Today line and other Historical Characters I will not be covering, I will still be reading 14 characters!

    I will also be reading them in release order to get an idea of how the brand changed overtime.

    First up is Meet Samantha.