Title: Meet Kit An American Girl Doll (Book 1)
Author: Valerie Tripp
Illustrators: Walter Rane and Susan McAliley
Publisher: Pleasant Company Publications
Publication Date: 2000
ISBN #: 2323205017
Brief Summary: This book is about a young girl named Kit Kittredge who is growing up in the 1930's. Kit has a dream of writing for a newspaper company and the book explains her adventures while trying to do so. Meanwhile, her family is living in The Great Depression, so it also highlights struggles Kit and her family went through during such an economically tough time.
Evaluation: When it comes to learning about history as a young reader, I immediately thought of The American Girl Series. Kits stories were my favorite growing up. The book gives young readers a way to relate to someone from a completely different time period. Kit goes through struggles like getting along with siblings, seeing her parents try to find jobs, and getting into innocent trouble like all kids still do today. What makes this book even better is that after the story is done, it offers a glimpse into the past. This education section of the book shows readers real photos of people from this time and tells them where people worked, what they ate and what their life was like while living in the midst of The Great Depression. Not only is this a fun book to read, but teaches the kids something valuable too about history and makes them want to read the rest of the books in the series! One may think that since the book is tied to toys, dolls, clothing and other marketable products, that the authors are just out to make money and not write high quality books. I would disagree with that assumption. It is clear after reading every single American Girl Doll book, that the authors really want their readers to learn about history through these books. I know I did. Meet Kit is a good quality historical text example and perfect for young readers, especially young girls.
Rating: 5 out of 5 newspaper articles!
This is showing my age, but when I was little there were only three American dolls and Kit was not one of them. I think this series appeals to kids because the stories really could happen in any time period, which makes them so relatable. The details and photographs at the end help bring the historical aspect more to the forefront for young readers.
ReplyDeleteI remember when Kit first came out. It was strange because there was a new doll between Samantha and Molly. After reading her books, though, I really liked her. I agree with Dr. Blamey, it shows there girls can be in any time period.
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