11 YAs to Read Based on Your Favorite American Girl Doll

Felicity, Kirsten, Marie-Grace, or Molly: Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell
These American Girls have been retired to the AG archives, but that doesn’t mean we don’t nostalgically love them. Some of us harbor warm, fuzzy memories of brushing Felicity’s red hair, or looking for Molly’s lost glasses for the thousandth time. Fangirl’s Cath Avery is also still deeply connected to her first fictional love, Simon Snow, spending hours reading and rereading the books, hanging out in fan forums, and writing hyper-popular fan fiction about the Harry Potter-esque series. But Cath’s twin sister, Wren, has left the fandom behind, and decided not to room with her sis in college. Does growing up really mean moving on from the comforts of childhood? Cath is about to find out, as she steps out into the world for the first time on her own.

Truly Me: The Third Twin, by C. J. Omololu
With American Girl’s line of Truly Me dolls, you can personalize your doll, then deck her out in matching doll-girl outfits, which sadly/fortunately don’t come in grownup sizes. So if you like the idea of toting around a tiny identical version of yourself, the creeptastic thriller The Third Twin is for you. When they were kids, identical twins Lexi and Ava invented a “third twin” named Alicia, on whom they would blame childhood hijinks. Now high school seniors, the girls take turns pretending to be Alicia to tap into their wilder sides, dressing provocatively and dating guys they usually wouldn’t. But now one of those dates has turned up dead, and all signs point to the fictitious Alicia. An awesomely shocking page-turner, the book may require you to cover your Truly Me doll’s eyes during the scary parts.

Girl of the Year: Girl Online, by Zoe Sugg
Every year, American Girl introduces a new Girl of the Year—this year’s is business-minded baker Grace Thomas—designed to reflect “the interests and experiences of real girls today.” And YouTube star Zoella, aka Zoe Sugg, definitely represents the same notion. In her debut novel, she explores teenhood in the digital age. Fictional British teen Penny, under the alias GirlOnline, blogs about boys, high school, family, friends, and her anxiety disorder. But when she starts to fall for a guy she meets in New York with secrets of his own, her anonymity might just be compromised.

Kaya: Rain Is Not My Indian Name, by Cynthia Leitich Smith
Kaya is an ambitious and adventurous Nez Perce girl living in 1764, prior to the permanent settlement of Europeans in the Pacific Northwest. She’s also the only Native American among the AG gals—a fact with which protagonist Cassidy Rain Berghoff can identify. In Rain Is Not My Indian Name, 14-year-old Rain, a half-Native girl living in a mostly white Midwestern community, has largely cut herself off from the outside world after having lost her mom and her best friend in a two-year span. When her brother and his girlfriend encourage her to get involved in her Aunt Georgia’s Indian Camp, she reluctantly agrees to photograph the meetings for the local paper. Through the assignment, she works through her complicated feelings around cultural identity, grief, and loss.

Josefina: The Survival Kit, by Donna Freitas
Josefina is a young Mexican girl living in New Mexico in 1824 with her father and three older sisters. Her mother died just a year before the series starts, and Josefina is still learning to adapt to life without her—a difficult task also facing 16-year-old Rose in Freitas’s The Survival Kit, who she loses her mother to cancer. Her mom left a survival kit behind for her—a brown paper bag filled with items like an iPod, a photograph of peonies, and a crystal heart. As she attempts to put the pieces of her life and the survival kit together, Rose finds a kindred spirit in Will, a hockey player who has also lost a parent.

Addy: My Name Is Not Friday, by Jon Walter
American Girl Addy is a courageous refugee slave in 1864, and her difficult history is both heartbreaking and hopeful—much like that of teenaged Samuel, a black orphan who is sold into slavery in the final years of the Civil War. Renamed Friday by a slave trader, Samuel ends up on a Mississippi cotton plantation, where he endures the horrors of slavery but maintains his faith in God and redemption. My Name Is Not Friday is a fantastic read about the resilience of the human spirit in the face of extreme adversity.

Samantha: Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli
Samantha may look all prim and proper at first glance, but she has a defiant streak when it comes to societal expectations. Jerry Spinelli’s titular Stargirl is also unapologetically authentic with her eccentricities and carefree attitude when it comes to what the kids at Mica High School think of her. But then her own special brand of cheering at a school football game earns her serious popularity, and suddenly everyone wants to be her friend. But they just as quickly turn on the quirky Stargirl when they find out she cheers for both teams. The book’s narrator, Leo, falls for Stargirl and tries to convince her to conform, but things don’t go quite as he planned.

Rebecca: Like No Other, by Una LaMarche
Rebecca is a lively 10-year-old Jewish girl of Russian descent living in New York City in 1914, and she dreams of being an actress. But her very traditional family disapproves of her ambitions. Like No Other’s Devorah, meanwhile, also lives with the pressures of what her Hasidic Jewish family and community expect of her. She’s not allowed to talk to boys and has never challenged the rules of her upbringing—until one fateful evening, when she gets stranded in an elevator during a storm with Jaxon, an adorably nerdy black non-Jewish guy of whom her family definitely wouldn’t approve. Can their bond really bridge the gap between their two vastly different worlds?

Kit: The Game of Love and Death, by Martha Brockenbrough
Great Depression–era Kit is a tomboy who loves writing—she even won an award for it—and baseball. Seventeen-year-old Henry also loves baseball, but he’s an unwitting player in a very different sort of game in Depression-set YA The Game of Love and Death. Henry, who’s white and has a wealthy adoptive family, bonds with 17-year-old Flora, an orphan from a poor African American family, but it’s not just differences in race and class that challenge their romance. There are supernatural forces at work here: Henry and Flora have been chosen by adversaries Love and Death as the newest pawns in their centuries-old battle. If Henry and Flora choose each other, against all odds, then Love wins. But if they don’t, Death is the victor, and Flora will lose her life.

Maryellen: Lies We Tell Ourselves, by Robin Talley
The newest addition to the BeForever line, independent and optimistic Maryellen, with her high ponytail and full skirt, represents the 1950s. Robin Talley’s Lies We Tell Ourselves also embodies the ’50s, a tumultuous time in the civil rights movement. The story is told through the alternating narratives of two girls: Sarah, one of 10 black students recently integrated into the formerly all-white Jefferson High School; and Linda, the daughter of a journalist who fiercely opposes integration. When Sarah and Linda are brought together to work on a class project, they’re forced to face some difficult truths about themselves and their society’s views on race, gender roles, homosexuality, and interracial relationships.

Julie: The Summer of Naked Swim Parties, by Jessica Anya Blau
Julie is a strong, fun-loving girl growing up in San Francisco in 1974. She’s willing to fight for what she thinks is right, including nabbing her own spot on the boys-only basketball team. Fourteen-year-old Jamie is also navigating the Me Decade in Jessica Anya Blau’s coming-of-age debut novel The Summer of Naked Swim Parties. Jamie’s free-spirited parents are into swinging, smoking pot, and throwing the titular swim parties, much to their daughter’s embarrassment. But then Flip, the cutest surfer in town, provides a nice distraction for overly anxious Jamie.
Who’s your favorite American Girl?