Many of us remember the American Girl Dolls when we were growing up and some of us have now bought them for our own daughters. However I received an email from a friend/ home schooling mom that surprised me. You can read it for yourself.

“My daughter’s b-day is coming up and she’s wild about American Girls. She’s read just about all of the books. They have a new series for older girls called Dolls of Many Lands. One of them is an Irish doll that comes with a book called Kathleen: The Celtic Knot. I “preread” it before wrapping it and giving it to her and boy am I glad I did!
This book is positively horrible! Within just the first few pages it starts up with the old stereotypes of the mean Catholic nuns teaching school. It then goes on to develop the hero of the story – Kathleen’s 20 year old aunt “Polly” who likes to wear bright red lipstick, smoke, and hates anything to do with Christianity or the Church. The truth is that “Polly’s” real name is “Mary”, but she cannot bear the idea of that name so she demands that everyone call her “Polly” instead.
In one scene Polly lectures her brother-in-law, Kathleen’s father, on the dangers of going to mass, praying, and devotions. This book isn’t good enough for bird cage paper, as one of my dearest friends would say. I wrote American Girl and told them exactly how offended I am – as a Catholic Christian and as an Irish citizen – by their negative portrayal of the Irish of the 1930’s and of Christianity in general. Hopefully this heads up will save some of you the same experience. God Bless, K.”