American Girls: Maryellen

[osprey_archer]

I have acquired the first of the new American Girl series from the library! The first of...two books, because they'd decided to move away from the six book pattern for some reason.

"Okay, self," I said consolingly. "This is not the end of the world. There are legitimate reasons why they could cut down from six books to two, and at least it looks like the two books are longer books so we won't necessarily be getting less story, and anyway the illustrations..."

And then I flipped through the book.

The illustrations appear to be nonexistent.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO what even is American Girl without illustrations??? WHAT HAVE THEY DONE? WHAT IS THIS MONSTROSITY! WHAT IS THIS MADNESS! EVERYTHING IS TERRIBLE.

...I'll let you know how the actual story is once I've read the book, but for now I am registering FIRM DISAPPROVAL.

Comments

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

Damn, that is weak. No illustrations at all? Not even a drawing for the chapter headings?

>:(

Let me co-sign your FIRM DISAPPROVAL. American Girls, what is this about? Did your Kids These Days Consultant tell you that the 6-10 demographic is growing averse to images or something? Because I can tell you right now those consultants do not follow proper research protocols and that is not what "texting" means.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

NONE. NONE WHATSOEVER. I'm particularly annoyed because it's the fifties book, so I was all excited for the deliciously eye-popping colors (surely they would find an excuse for a pink Cadillac, right?), and then NOTHING. NOTHING. NOTHING AT ALL.

Well, I guess we have the covers, but still. Basically nothing.

I thought it was bad when they brought out the Marie-Grace and Cecile books with their horrible illustrations (that series is soooo frustrating; such an interesting premise, so little utilized), but when they brought out the Caroline books the illustrations were back up to par and I thought the danger had passed. And now this!

[evelyn-b.livejournal.com]

DAMN I KNOW

THE FIFTIES ARE SO DELICIOUS that I can only imagine there were so many illustrators fighting for the job that the American Girl publishers finally refused to have any illustrations at all to teach them a lesson or to avoid liability in case of duels or something.

I mean FASHION and JUKEBOXES and DRIVE-IN EVERYTHING in your HUGE GODDAMN CARS and JELLO SALADS and RATIONING IS OVER and the RETURN OF THE FUTURE coupled with INTENSE GENDER AND RACIAL ANXIETY FOR EVERYONE; why would anyone want to hold back on depicting this gorgeous history explosion with as many pictures as possible?

Also, ouch. I went looking for Marie-Grace and Cecile (because I am way out of the American Girl loop, it seems), and those cover images are dire. Were they trying to capture the weirdly stiff and cramped feeling of quasi-amateur family portraits before the rise of photography? Because that's theoretically interesting and all, but not really worth the effort for a children's book, when you could just get an actual professional to paint you a good-looking picture instead.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Right? Right? Maybe the illustrators were threatening to hold duels. That is the only explanation I will accept.

The worst part is that there are all these scenes that simply CRY OUT for illustration. Maryellen and two of her friends do a dance together while they're all wearing black poodle skirts with pink poodles! It screams ILLUSTRATE ME.

I'm not sure what they thought they were doing with Marie-Grace and Cecile. Either the illustrations or the rest of it, really. The premise practically screams LET US EXPLORE AXES OF OPPRESSION IN AMERICAN HISTORY, but I guess in between coming up with the idea and actually executing it they totally chickened out, because they don't really do anything with it.