OH HAI LOOK AT THIS!

[rikibeth]

This? Is the newest American Girl doll.

Named Rebecca Rubin.

AND SHE IS A RUSSIAN-JEWISH IMMIGRANT GIRL LIVING ON THE LOWER EAST SIDE IN 1914.

Do you know how long I have been saying they needed to make this doll?

AT LEAST TEN YEARS. Maybe longer.

It's even the decade I wanted them to use!

And she MARCHES IN A GARMENT WORKER'S STRIKE. How awesome is that?

Apparently they made a new hair color just for her, trying to avoid stereotyping. I'd have liked it better if she had ringlet-curly dark brown hair (LIKE MINE), but since she sort of looks like Susan Rubin who went to Hebrew school with me, I can let that go, mostly.

Originally I was just kind of mad at them for not making Molly Jewish, because Molly looks EXACTLY like childhood pictures of my mom. Her birthday party dress? Is IDENTICAL to the one my mother wore for her fifth birthday. But then I started to look at what decades they hadn't covered yet, and I kept hoping they'd do one from the 1910 decade, because of All-of-a-Kind Family, and things that would reflect my grandmothers, and all that.

And I waited. And we got Josefina. And Kaya. And blonde, blue-eyed Kit from the 1930s. And blonde Julie from the 1970s -- I REMEMBER the 1970s, people. And they all had CHRISTMAS stories. And all we got for Jewish dolls was a Girl of the Year, who's always a modern-day doll, and that's just not the same.

Now they finally have a doll whose story fits in MY history.

I WANT A DOLLY.

Comments

[wasabi-poptart.livejournal.com]

oh my goodness!

I've been waiting for just this American Girl for ages too!

except I would have named her Rachel.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I'm totally fine with Rebecca, because I'm Ryka Batya, and Ryka's a variant of Rivka, so at least THAT aspect of the doll looked like me.

(I'm sad that they retired Samantha. Samantha looked closest to me and had the most wonderful clothes. Back when they used to do more with the girl-sized clothes including SHOES, I very nearly bought her button boots for myself. I STILL want button boots.

She's a year older than my paternal grandmother was. If they give her a summer dress of white lawn with tucks, she'll look like a childhood photo of that grandmother. I WANT A DOLLY.

[ihadtimetokill.livejournal.com]

They retired Samantha?! Damnit, she was my favorite...but I sort of outgrew them about the time when Addy, I think it was, got added to the collection? And she was the first new addition in ages, so all I really knew&loved were the originals (Felicity/Kirsten/Samantha/Molly and wait, am I missing one?). All these new girls seem very strange to me, but at the same time, this is wicked exciting, and I'm really glad that they're finally finally expanding the line. Hell of awesome.

I think you can has a dolly. I always wanted one, but could never decide on which one...

[kebbykate.livejournal.com]

Santa brought Samantha to our house in the nick of time this December. (I don't know how he does it, but my girls are completely awestruck.) My younger daughter M had gone into grief mode when I stupidly read aloud the sentence "Samantha is being retired."

I was too old when the first American Girl dolls came out, but my youngest sister wasn't so I've paid attention all along as they've added characters. I even bought one for her. (That doll was lost somewhere along the way, or she'd be worth hanging on to because she was an actual Pleasant Company doll.) I would have so loved one--in part because while my pedigree is WASP to the nth degree, in the mid-1970s when I played with dolls there was no getting a brunette doll and I wanted one that looked like me.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

My aunt took me to a doll collector's show when I was about ten and I SPECIAL ORDERED a doll (not unlike the AG dolls in size and shape, but with a more Madame Alexander face, don't know the maker) who was brunette like me. Then she helped me sew clothes for it. Lavender taffeta with ecru lace trim!

Right now I'm slightly miffed that the ONLY Looks Like Me doll with curly-ringlet hair has a "medium" skin tone. HI THAT IS MY HAIR AND I AM GHOSTLY PALE. If they could produce that hair in multiple colors and textures and put it on dolls of assorted skin tones, I would strongly consider ordering a pale doll with dark ringlet hair and dressing her in all of Rebecca's stuff.

[kebbykate.livejournal.com]

Now, you do know about My Twinn, right? (mytwinn.com) You can custom order a doll and they can wear AG doll clothes, although the fit isn't as good.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

And they're even MORE crazy expensive than the AGs! Ye gods.

[auspeople.livejournal.com]

And creepier.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Their face molds are nice. They wouldn't be so creepy if they weren't so damn BIG. 23" is a HUGE doll. 18" is about as big as you can get with the doll still seeming like a doll instead of a small child.

And they DO have ones with my coloring and hair texture.

[kebbykate.livejournal.com]

Very damn cool! And about darn time! How fantastic! I feel like I should say "Mazel Tov"!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Yes!

We'll just ignore the fact that her hair and eyes look more like YOU, and be happy about the story.

[kagyakusha.livejournal.com]

That's an awesome doll, but....(excuse my ignorance)

...what is an "American Girl"? *headtilt*

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

18" dolls for elementary-school aged girls, packaged with historical fiction.

http://www.americangirl.com/

[louiseroho.livejournal.com]

This doll is my family.
This doll is my roots.
This is so awesome, I'm going to cry.

If Will was a girl, I'd get him one.
He's currently in a "cannot be girly in anyway lest other boys tease me" frame.
So, I think I'll get her for myself.

[kebbykate.livejournal.com]

But you know what they really need? How about a 1954 Ruby Bridges character? A black girl integrating a white school--now that would be something.

Well, wait a minute Brown v. Board of Education is 1955, so maybe the girl would have to attend a segregated school, march somewhere, sit at a lunch counter--but you know what I mean.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I agree, that'd be wonderful.

However, FIRST they need to do an Asian girl who's not just a sidekick.

[kebbykate.livejournal.com]

Too right!

So when? And what's the story?

How about 1984? She's sansei and finds out her parents and/or grandparents were internees? (Now there's some social commentary!) And I vaguely remembered stuff about the internment camps was big around 1984 and here's what came up on wikipedia:

* 1983, Commission reports that Japanese American internment was not a national security necessity.

* 1988, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, apologizing for Japanese American internment and providing reparations of $20,000 to each victim.

And think of all the super-cool accessories! And she could take a trip to Japan! They better get right on this one! I think we'll be owed some royalties!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Meh, royalties. First they can give me a free Rebecca in compensation for the hidden microphone they obviously have in my living room, because I totally said the words "Jewish," "1910," "Lower East Side," "sweatshop," and "Triangle Shirtwaist Fire."

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Oh, yay! And she's so pretty!

Useful information byte: The AG dolls can be pretty pricey, but for each doll they make a miniature of the same doll, who doesn't have a million accessories, but is otherwise identical except small--about 8" tall, a little shorter than Barbie. So the doll can have a doll of herself. The mini dolls cost $22.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Do the minis come with the book? I want to play with all her accessories, of course, but I'm desperately interested in her STORY. Garment workers' strike!

[kebbykate.livejournal.com]

Santa brings the mini dolls to our house each year, so E has several now. I don't think they're as big as 8 inches, but maybe they are. Incidentally, they didn't drop the Samantha mini-doll when they retired the real doll. The mini doll comes with a miniature version of her first book, but it isn't the full story. I think it's just the first chapter. The books are stocked in local libraries and you can read one in about 45 minutes I think, so you can just go curl up with one occasionally even if you don't want to borrow.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

The full-size doll comes packaged with the first book in the series, but you can also buy the books separately. Each doll has a series of 6 books.

[princejvstin.livejournal.com]

That's wonderful!

[cad-red-ducati.livejournal.com]

that's really cool!

[happybluebunny.livejournal.com]

You should have a dolly. I have to say that while I am not an American Girl collector, I like Rebecca.

[maeveenroute.livejournal.com]

Says my partner (who, like me, grew up with Samantha):

re: the american girl doll. AWESOME!!!!!!!!! hopefully she'll hit it off with one of her fellow shirtwaist makers on the picket line, and 20 years down the line when they're both in their 30s (in the 1930s), depression-era, make-do dykes, they'll realize that it's not just that they don't want to /make/ clothes together... they also don't want to /wear/ them.

Somehow I'm not sure this is what Pleasant Company intended. ;c)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Rebecca can hit it off with a fellow shirtwaist maker, as long as she has a baby sister who marries and has children, because THIS DOLL IS MY GRANDMOTHERS. A year older than my paternal grandmother, eight years older than my maternal grandmother.

[jedilora.livejournal.com]

Sweet! I too, wish she was brunette, but still-if they had to retire Samantha, this is what they should've done.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

I hope the book to go with her is decent. They serialised one of the American Girl books in the newspaper, which was about an Irish-Am character in the suffragette era, and it got on my nerves because the dialogue was terrible--the characters who were supposed to be Irish were speaking something more like Mockney than anything else.

AG Books.

[kebbykate.livejournal.com]

They've been getting some better writers for some of the more recent books and my 9-year-old reports favorably on the Julie books by Megan McDonald, so hopefully they'll get an established author for the Rachel books.


(Megan McDonald is the author of the Judy Moody books, which are very funny.)

Re: AG Books.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's good to know.

hopefully they'll get an established author for the Rachel books.

*knocks wood*

I hope so as well.

[ghilledhu.livejournal.com]

Very cool - and about time, too!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

IKNOWRIGHT? I've only been saying it for ten years!

[ktpinto.livejournal.com]

I love the American Girl dolls!

I can't afford them, but I love them!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

When eternaleponine and I make it into the city, we usually wind up at least stopping in at American Girl Place to say hello to the dolls -- next time we're doing this, want to meet us there?

[ktpinto.livejournal.com]

Let me know. I'll see if I'm up to tormenting myself by looking at things I can't afford. LOL!

[pocketpolina.livejournal.com]

This is AWESOME

[kebbykate.livejournal.com]

Ummmmm...how _did_ you get this information? It's really wonderful, but nowhere on the site. My girls are dying of curiosity.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I first heard of it when someone posted on Making Light (http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/)'s current open thread about it, and then Googling got me articles in the New York Times and the Jerusalem Post, among others! Her official release date is 5/31.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

They've got the Rebecca doll in the store now. Here's the mini doll.

The description of the "Candlelight for Rebecca" book manages to namecheck Christmas 5 times and Hanukkah twice. And includes the phrase "real meaning of the holiday season." Because Judaism is all about the absence of Christmas.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Believe me, that's REALISTIC. Rebecca doesn't live in a bubble. Christmas is all around her, everywhere, and a BIG part of the American Jewish experience is learning what it's like to be an outsider in December. And, yes, it goes back that far. There's a family story about my grandfather (born 1910) in elementary school -- they were decorating the classroom for Christmas, and the teacher asked who would bring in the holly. Grandpa volunteered. He showed up the next day with a big gorgeous loaf of challah bread -- which, in a lot of regional variations of Yiddish, is pronounced "cholly." He was very disappointed to learn that that wasn't what his teacher had been asking for.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

LOL, I do believe it's realistic, but since the AG dolls are an aspirational pride-building toy it's unfortunate that they're using it to reinforce the idea of Christmas as normal.

ETA: ironic laughter at the failyness of the teacher, not LOLing at your Grandpa.