American Girl Doll News

Marie-Grace Gardner won the poll for the Doll of the Month for August 2023! (Edit made by AGDN reader Raine) In 1853, Marie-Grace lives in New Orleans, Louisiana during the Yellow Fever outbreak. Marie-Grace is new to town, and she is struggling to make friends at first, but then she meets Cecile Rey, who shares the same love of music that she does. However, the bonds of the two friends are tested when Yellow Fever breaks out in New Orleans and they must use their strengths to help out in different ways during the time of need. Marie-Grace was released in August 2011 and retired in August 2014, along with all the other Best Friend dolls.

Today is Lea's birthday! She was born on this day in 2005, making her 18 years old.

At the beginning of this year, American Girl introduced a new logo. I was thinking about that this morning while in the car, and decided, why not do a post about all of American Girl's past logos? This was American Girl, well, Pleasant Company's logo for it's entire run, from 1986 to 1998. After the company was bought by Mattel, "American Girl" started being used more frequently to refer to the company as a whole, and the Pleasant Company name was phased out around 2004. This logo, for American Girl, was first used around 2000 and was phased out around 2015 in favor of a minor revision. The second "American Girl" logo, used from 2015 to 2022, looked like this: The third and current logo was introduced at the beginning of 2023:

As we get closer to Girl of the Year 2024, stock of Corinne Tan's collection is starting to sell out. These items are now on limited quantities: Corinne's Ski Lodge Fire Pit Corinne Book 1

When you buy Claudie's new Winter Coat, you will get a bit of her Christmas Story that wasn't included in her 2 books that take place during the summer! If you want to read the story, it seems like the only option is to buy the coat. Maybe American Girl will release her Christmas story separately soon!

It's that time again - time for a new Doll of the Month! This month, you can choose between Blaire Wilson, Kirsten Larson and Marie-Grace Gardner.

I went to the American Girl store today and was able to take some photos of the new items! Here they are:

Belle and Jasmine came to my dad's house! Rapunzel won't come until September, but for now, here's Belle and Jasmine's box photos:

While digging for something totally different, I found an expired casting call for American Girl: Live in Concert, for girls 18-30 to perform as the dolls, a human host, and 2 understudies. Here's what I learned while looking at the casting call: The show is written by Tim Murray, directed and choreographed by Antoinette DiPietropolo, who has worked on many shows including Mamma Mia, Hairspray, and How The Grinch Stole Christmas, and musically directed by James Olmstead (conductor of DC In Concert: The Batman) and Paul Rambacher (manager of Mamma Mia and Under The Sun at Hard Rock Hotel). As previously announced, the dolls featured in the show include Claudie, Melody, Julie, Courtney and Nicki. All of the people auditioning for these roles are supposed to be skilled pop/rock singers and dancers, with an emphasis on Motown music for Melody and jazz music for Claudie. A original human character named Madison was also in the casting call. All ethnicities were sought for this role, and she is described as follows: "This is her first experience on stage and the American Girl Dolls help her find the confidence within to overcome her stage-fright. She is playful, smart, strong and learns how to follow her inner star. She embodies the young spirit of a girl in 2023." I searched everywhere I could to find cast information, but it hasn't been announced yet. The cast of the last American Girl live show was announced a month before the tour, so I can assume it will be announced later this month. What do you think? I'm kind of disappointed it's not an all-female crew like the last one was, but regardless I'm still excited and hope it's enjoyable! I'm not expecting it to be as good or better than the last tour, but I can't wait to go regardless.

I got a comment from AGDN reader Kat telling me that Rebecca was under "limited quantities" and asked me if she was going to be cubed. I decided to check the situation on Rebecca's page out to see if she is, and to be honest, I think she will be. I have four reasons as to why. On American Girl's website, not only is the Rebecca doll under limited quantities, but a few items in her already-small collection are under limited quantities. There are only 11 items left, and 3 - the doll, Hanukkah outfit, and bed and bedding - are under limited quantities. Besides that, only her nightgown, menorah, kittens, Sabbath set, parlor table and accessories are available. The Parlor table is no longer available in stores, the Sabbath and Menorah sets are unavailable in all stores except the flagships and the nightgown isn't available in New York. 2. Rebecca hasn't been featured in AG marketing as much as she used to. She was removed from the American Girl Live tour for the 2023 tour, which kicks off next month, and she hasn't been promoted as much as she was back in 2019, when the historical line was relaunched and Rebecca was one of the core 6. 3. The American Girl store is starting to run out of space for new characters. Kaya doesn't even have a full display in the Charlotte store anymore because there are only 8 cases and they are all full - Rebecca, Claudie, Nanea, Maryellen, Melody, Julie, Courtney and Isabel/Nicki, and Molly and Kit have their own sections off on the side. If AG cubes Rebecca, Kaya can have her old spot back, and AG can make room for new characters. 4. Rebecca isn't the only Jewish Historical character anymore. While Nicki and Isabel are interfaith, they both are part Jewish and the opening of their book releasing new month has been confirmed to delve deeper into their Hanukkah celebrations. When Melody released as the second African American character in the BeForever lineup, Addy was cubed around that time because she wasn't the only one anymore, so I can see a similar situation happening with Rebecca. What do you all think?

UPDATE: Truly Me dolls and Contemporary Characters on Amazon.com are also 20% off. Today is National Doll Day, and to celebrate, American Girl is offering 20% off most of their 18 inch dolls! While the limited edition dolls like the FAO Schwarz and Disney Princesses are excluded from this deal, these dolls are available: Historical Characters - $92 Corinne and Kavi - $92 World By Us - $92 Kit Special Edition Birthday - $120 Truly Me 100-124 - $92 Truly Me 25, 42, 44, 64, 66, 67, 70, 71, 72, 73, 77, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92 - $92

The American Girl August release is now on the American Girl website! Here is the Birthstone collection - all the outfits in this collection cost $52 each.