Jeanne Brady

MULTICULTURALISM IS A TREND in the toy industry in
the 1990s, and today's dolls, with their caricatured ethnicity, are in full
splendor, lined up in the aisles of toy stores everywhere. Even Barbie,
still in her trashy pageantry, can be purchased in African American or
Native American garb. In addition to fostering diversity, today's dolls can
foster a form of literacy as well. As we know, Barbie has long been offered
in a talking, albeit garrulous, version. It is important to note that dolls
and books encode the cultural values of their creators. Barbie's cultural
capital, however, cannot compete with the American Girl Collection.

The American Girl Collection is no exception to this multicultural
trend. It too embraces diversity and literacy. American Girl dolls come
not only with authentic fashions of the times but with historically accu-
rate clothes and accessories, which can be purchased along with a series
of companion books that are intended to help children understand what
a girl's life was like during a particular historical period.

Pleasant Rowland, creator of the American Girl Collection and presi-
dent of Pleasant Company, has pushed her empire beyond playrooms
and bedrooms of little girls and into classrooms, offering lending li-
braries and an American Girl curriculum to accompany the dolls and
books. Many educators are constantly looking for children's literature
that provides positive images and interesting characters for boys and
girls in the hope that these books will deepen and expand a critical un-
derstanding of cultural and gender diversity in our classrooms. Rowland
has attempted to fill this void for young girls by commercially marketing
dolls and books about Felicity, Kirsten, Addy, Samantha, and Molly in an
attempt to bring history alive and to show how growing up in America
has both changed and stayed the same during the past 200 years.

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