American Girl Julie #1: Meet Julie

Julie is deturmined to get on the basket ball team, but coach says it's only for boys.Will Julie ever get on the basket ball team?find out in Meet Julie, a wounderful book about a confident girl.

Copied from my classroom library:
Julie's parents have just gotten divorced, and Julie has to deal with being across San Francisco from her best friend, Ivy, a new, stricter school, and her mom working at the store instead of being home. Julie sees one bright spot- she can join the basketball team

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with her new friend, T. J. The coach won't let her on, so she works hard getting 150 signatures for a petition. When even that doesn't work, she brings it to the principal and he brings it before the school board who let her on the team at last.

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Okay, do I actually confess this? I spent Rudd money on an American Girl doll. How frivolous is that? Yes, I'm still a doll fanatic and the American Girl dolls are such great quality and have such nice clothes etc to go with them. They also seem to have defined a "standard" doll size so that loads

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of other clothes are made to fit dolls of that size.

I had to choose between an historical doll or a "Just like you" doll that you design according to your own hair and features etc. It was a difficult choice for me - I was stuck between Julie (1970s), Mollie (1940s) and Kit (1930s). I ended up choosing Julie - her style just amused me so much. I didn't realise until after I'd ordered her that I'd essentially chosen a "just like you" doll without even thinking! Malcolm pointed it out immediately - he says she looks just the way he remembers me when we were first going out (well, close enough to be amusing). As far as I can work out, she would be 2 years older than me... And clearly, like me, never made it past 10 years old!

The doll came with a "Meet Julie" book which I have to say I really enjoyed. Julie isn't anything like me in personality, but I really enjoyed reading about her. While it's a short book with not too much in it, the writing style is very engaging and the quality of the book is really beautiful. I love the illustrations and the historical context provided at the back was interesting and not too superficial. I might even be tempted to buy the next title. Not sure yet...

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Each American Girl series focuses on a different historic time period and places strong girl characters in the middle of a story that draws heavily from the social-historical context. For example, Title IX, Richard Nixon, veterans' rights, and the title "Ms." are all woven into the storyline---some

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more effectively than others. I'm guessing there must be some requirement on the number of historic references included because the one on Richard Nixon seems particularly out of place in the storyline. A character repeats a Nixon quotation in order to motivate Julie to keep collecting signatures, and Julie remembers vaguely that her parents fought about Nixon for some reason. Readers will easily relate to Julie's concerns about the changes in her family and her desire to make friends and to fit in at her new school; however, some of the historical lessons seem a little clunky and forced---not all will resonate equally with middle readers.

This book is a good introduction to Title IX issues and women's roles in sports. It could be part of a unit on women's history (Women's History Month) or a unit on heroes, especially those in sports. The historic information in the back of the book could be used for mini-research reports where students (or groups of students) look up more information on one of the main people or events of the 1970s. The reports could be shared in class and even in the school library.

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While nothing earth-shattering happens here, the ups and downs of Julie's life will resonate as important to girls her age and her triumph in joining the basketball team is no small feat. The Julie series is the first of the American girl series to feature divorced parents and it has the most

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recent setting. In fact, other than some details like mood rings and the historical events mentioned (Vietnam, Title IX), the story doesn't feel like historical fiction at all. The book is clearly the start of a series and girls will want to read on to find out how Julie actually fares on her basketball team.

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In 2007, I was certainly too old for American Girl and had other things going on, like trying to graduate from high school. Nevertheless, AG had FINALLY introduced an Asian American character, albeit as the best friend and not lead for the 1970s period. There's since been an Amazon Prime adaptation

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of Ivy's standalone book, but to better understand her, I figure I should read Julie's books for context.

It's a little weird to have a historical character that's a decade younger than my parents, but at the same time it's surprising to realize things like Ms. as a widespread honorific and Title IX are relatively recent things within the last 50 years. Julie is also AG's proxy for talking to kids about divorce- something socially unacceptable in prior periods. I'm interested to see where this goes.

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