Dear American Girl...

As many of you know, I have been very frustrated with american girl lately. I decided to send them an email! Have a look:

I have loved american girl for 9 years now. But now my love is faltering. I feel like your prices have risen dramatically in the past few years, and I am no longer comfortable purchasing your products. When you get this, your company will continue to chug out cheaply made items from your factories in China. You will continue to overprice your items. And girls will continue to purchase them.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Anna, I am 14 years old, and I received my first AG doll for my 4th birthday. My passion for dolls has blossomed through youtube, where I create videos about my dolls and their life. I have transformed my closet into a dollhouse, and posted almost 200 stop motions on youtube. (If you would like to watch one, heres a link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E2cfVtxI2I&feature=channel_video_title ) I spend much of my free time creating these videos, and American Girl dolls are something I hold dear to my heart.

But latley, I have become very frustrated with American Girl. Your prices have skyrocketed in the past 5 or 6 years. You probably receive many emails every day about this issue, but I hope this one stands out to you. I hope I can be part of the change. I want you to lower your prices not because I am lazy and dont want to work for money. (I have a steady babysitting buissness, which gives me some income. I also work at a summer camp and earn money from that.) I want you to lower your prices because I feel it is unfair.

This is Unfair to little girls. Not every child is lucky enough to be born into a wealthy family. There are many little girls out there who want to buy a doll, but dont even get the chance. Their family just can not afford it.

There is a little girl that lives in my neighborhood, and would carry a ratty baby doll everywhere. I would see her every once in a while. One time I was taking pictures of my dolls when she walked by. Of course she had her ratty doll with her. As soon as she saw my dolls, her face brightened and she skipped over to have a look. She asked if she could touch my doll. I said sure. She told me how much she wanted one for herself, and it melted my heart. She lives in a trailer park. She has very little money. And she really wanted an american girl doll. My friend Natalie had given me her old Josefina doll a few days before, and I knew just what to do. When I gave the little girl that doll, I can not even explain the joy I felt inside. It was such a good feeling to share my love of american girl with someone who normally could not afford to experience it.

But that is only one girl. There are thousands more, some of them send me messages on youtube. These little girls never have get to experience american girl. I think you should give them the chance.

I have sent you emails before, and so have my friends. Your usual response is that you want girls to work hard for their dolls. This is totally reasonable! It is just that most little girls would have to have 4 lemonade stands on busy Saturdays to buy a doll outfit. Older girls have to babysit for 3 hours to get that doll outfit. That is a bit too much. Because of your prices, I have not purchased any of your products for 7 months.

Also, Please assure safe factory conditions! I would be much happier purchasing from mattel if I knew that you did not use child labor, that you had fair wages ect. I am not saying that your factory conditions are bad. I actually have no clue what they are like! Still, I would like for you to have good conditions for you workers.

I really hope you take into account my concerns. But if not, I guess I understand. You are a busy company. I just hope this message makes you think.