Online Newsletter #2
April
2002
Do you want to know
what awesome Historical American Girl items Pleasant Company might release this year? You can find
it here, in The Society of American Girl Collectors online newsletter!
Four Possible New Books for Kit!
In
one of the recent catalogs, there was a page set aside for all the dolls' book sets, each of which
includes a Story Collection book, "World" book, and four Short Stories. For Kit, it said "Coming
this Fall." Since all the other dolls have four short stories and Kit only has one, if her book
set is going to be the same as the other dolls', that means that her book set would have four short
stories too. And if she is getting three new short stories, then perhaps (I'm just guessing here)
she will also get a new outfit, since all the other dolls have an outfit to go along with one of
their short stories. That would definitely be cool! The possibility of a fourth book comes from
something intriguing I noticed on the backs of the new Travel Adventure books for Samantha and
Molly (see review below). On the back of Samantha's book it said, "Read all about Molly's and
Kit's travel adventures too!" and on the back of Molly's book it said, "Read all about Samantha's
and Kit's travel adventures too!" So it looks like there's definitely plans for an Adventure book
for Kit, although I was surprised that they'd mention it on the back of these books since no one
has heard anything about Kit's book yet. We'll have to wait and see--hopefully it is released
soon!
New Kaya Book Information
Society of AG
Collectors member Sarah scouted out some new Kaya information for this month's newsletter. On
isbn.nu she found an entry for
Changes for Kaya.
Although
Changes for Kaya won't be released until 2003, a typo in the entry said it was
going to be released in 2002, which is probably why she was able to find the information on
Changes For Kaya but no information on the books that would be released at the same time,
Happy Birthday, Kaya! and
Kaya Saves the Day. If you want to read the short synopsis
on the book, do a search on
isbn.nu. I also did a
search on
amazon.com and found
Changes for
Kaya but not
Happy Birthday, Kaya! or
Kaya Saves the Day. We'll keep our eyes
peeled!
American Girl Items at Hallmark
Sarah also spots
this--Hallmark and Pleasant Company have made a merchandise agreement where Hallmark will sell some
new American Girl-related products in its stores this fall. According to an article from
writenews.com on the agreement, "The first gift product offering will be based on The American
Girls Collection, Pleasant Company's flagship product line of historical books, dolls and
accessories. Hallmark will be developing greeting cards, gift wrap, partyware, stationery,
ornaments, gifts and memory keeping products based on the American Girl brand. An in-store boutique
of products rooted in literacy, storytelling and history will be offered exclusively to the
approximately 5,000 Hallmark Gold Crown stores and through Pleasant Company's consumer catalogue,
at its retail store, American Girl Place, and at americangirl.com starting in September 2002."
Sarah reports that you can find sneak peeks of some of the items on a Sneak Peek page at the
Hallmark homepage. Thanks for all the info,
Sarah!
Future Plans for Historical American Girl Line
Another Society member, Meg V., discovered this: a short article in the March 25, 2002
edition of
Newsweek on Lindsey. The article included a quote from a representative of
Pleasant Company saying that the company was considering a Jewish doll as a future addition to the
Historical Girls line because Lindsey had sold so well and a Jewish Historical Girl was "one of
their top requests." So this is interesting for the Society for two reasons. First, it gives us
some info on what we might see in the future, and second, it shows that if a lot of AG fans request
something, Pleasant Company listens! Thanks for the info, Meg!
Plans and Ideas for the Society of American Girl
Collectors
Two big goals I have for the Society of AG
Collectors include 1) convincing Pleasant Company to bring back discontinued historical doll
accessories, and 2) increasing membership. In order to start working on goal #1, The Society is
launching a letter writing campaign. I mailed my letter at the end of March, and other Society
members have said they will write letters also. I think the only way to let Pleasant Company know
what's on the mind of collectors is to write lots of letters! So all members who would like to
write letters are encouraged to write! There is a section of this site,
Writing Pleasant Company, that deals with writing letters, and it will be a
place that I will post copies of members' letters so that people can see what others have written
and get ideas for their letters. The address for Pleasant Company is:
Pleasant Company
P. O. Box 620190
Middleton, WI 53562-0190
Felicity not to be
discontinued
Society member Susan R. gives us information on
the future of Felicity through a letter she received from Pleasant Company. The letter states that
although Felicity will be retiring from the catalog, she will continue to be available on the
website indefinitely and will not be discontinued. This is definitely good news for Historical AG
fans!
Book Review for the new Travel Adventure Books
At the end of March, I purchased
Samantha's Ocean Liner Adventure and
Molly's Route 66
Adventure. I definitely give Pleasant Company high marks for both creativity and quality! It
was neat to see actual historical photographs, postcards, and other souvenirs. That really
relates each of the girls and their stories to the way the world was in their time. The books take
place in 1906 and 1946, after all of the other books in Samantha and Molly's collections. Because
the books are in scrapbook/journal style, there is not too much of a plot to each book, just a lot
of entries and "scraps" (most of the "scraps" are just printed on the pages, of course). But the
books were still entertaining and clever, and the scraps that you could fold out or remove were
neat. It is fun to imagine what such trips would have been like for girls like Samantha and Molly.
I think these are books that AG fans of all ages will enjoy, and I really hope that Pleasant
Company comes out with something similar for Felicity, Josefina, Kirsten, Addy, and Kit!
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