Glad we missed this fad

This marketing scheme has always amazed me for its ingenuity--and I'm so happy we missed it. My daughter had a few used Barbies found at garage sales, but never really got involved in anything that soaked up money. The Night Writer tells about visiting New York and encountering the line at an American Girl Place, where for $22 you can have lunch with a doll.

"A year ago I had no idea of the marketing volcano that was about to erupt under our feet. Then some black-hearted scoundrel slipped Daughter Two an American Girl catalog – the first one’s free, kid – and her life changed. American Girl dolls are a vertically integrated economic powerhouse. The dolls themselves go for nearly $100 a pop, but that’s just the threshold – the dolls represent different eras and ethnicities in American history and most are the stars of one or more books put out by the company and has full line of accessories, not to mention the magazine (catalog) that appears regularly at our house. My daughter and her friends now can recite model numbers, back stories and accessory details with each other the way my friends and I once were able to argue the finer points of a ’63 Impala or ’67 GTO."

From the looks of the archive, this blog started in February.