special report

AMERICAN GIRL

May/June 2007 Issue

AMERICAN GIRL is published bi-monthly by Pleasant Company. Target age is 8+ -- girls seen inside magazine, or heard from in reader mail top out at 13. The magazine is heavily activity oriented; most of the content is focused on helping girls do something – though not always how-tos. After reading over a dozen recent issues, it’s clear that most fiction is relationship centered – themes involve friendship, appreciating family, etc. Boys are mostly absent from the stories. Most items in this issue have no byline.

From the Guidelines

Fiction - contemporary up to 2300 words.
Protagonist must be 8 - 12. Especially likes humor and seasonal. No romance. No science fiction, fantasy, or horror.

Nonfiction - 150 words or less profiles of girls within AG's reader age.
Crafts or Recipes (directions are usually one paragraph long - often 50 words or less).
Longer nonfiction must be queried. They also take collection articles containing several crafts or recipes on a single theme - should be simple to do, inexpensive, and keep safety in mind. Also interested in seasonal puzzles and games.

Pays on Acceptance. Responds in 12 weeks.
$500 for stories, $300 for articles.

AMERICAN GIRL
8400 Fairway Place,
Middleton, WI 53562-2554.

From the Masthead:
Editorial Director - Michelle Nowadly Watkins
Executive Editor - Kristi Thom
Sr. Managing Editor - Barbara E. Stretchberry
Article Editor - Mary Richards Beaumont
Lifestyle Editor - Jessica Hastreiter
Associate Editor – Aubre Andrus

ANALYSIS OF SPECIFIC ISSUE

May/June 2007
Theme of this issue is color

Letters from You – One girl compliments an article on service dogs from a past issue. Two compliment activities relating to Valentines.

Girls Express - [Editors frequently note that this is the area of AMERICAN GIRLS most in need of freelancers]

• Rainbow In A Jar! A jar of M&Ms separated by color and layered in a jar.
  [82 words – A single paragraph of directions, no separate list of materials. Specific brand names not mentioned. No byline]
• Did You Know? - short color related fact and a "buzzword" - an unusual vocabulary word, in this case: kaleidoscopie.
• AG Art Gallery – reader art.
• True Story – A 13-year-old reader tells how she painted a dog mural on her grandmother’s fence, includes photos
• Creative Corner – covering a headband with embroidery floss – single paragraph of directions, 51 words.
• Rainbow in Nature – reader poem
• Color Confusion – puzzle where reader matches unusual names for colors (cerulean, saffron, onyx, etc) to graphics of crayons in that color.
• Lunch Box – Making salads using items of different colors.
• Shining Star – a 12-year-old girl who makes and sells pink crafts to raise money for breast cancer research.
• Contest – reader art – girls designed colorful outfits. [Next contest – snowless snowmen]
• Heart to Heart – True Colors. Readers talk about what color they would be if they were a color. [Next reader subject – holiday birthdays]
• Friendship Matters – Red Faced. Embarrassing moments shared with a friend.

Let’s Letter – tips for creating and using unusual lettering. This is an excerpt from an American Girls book Letter Art 2.

Green Girls [Shannon Payette Seip – this is the first item with a byline in this issue] Profiles three girls (12, 11, and 9] and their involvement in ecological projects [One girl works as a junior ranger during the summer, one girl got her school involved in projects to save the manatee, and one girl got her school to put paper recycling boxes next to all the classrooms.] The article also has eco-friendly tips in the margins.

Why Are Jeans Blue? [Quiz] A trivia quiz about color – nine items.

Color Your World – Fifty very brief suggestions for adding color to your life including hairstyles, room décor (all diy and very inexpensive) and clothing tips like tying ribbons to flip-flops and using groups of colored ribbon as a belt.

Cooking – Colorful Cake – This recipe does have a “you will need” section. Involves baking but tells reader to ask an adult for help using the oven. Ingredients include boxed cake mix and canned frosting.

Ally Ackerman in the Pink [Kathleen O’Dell] Fiction. A girl who hates pink gets a month-long visit with a pink-obsessed cousin. Themes about both sharing and not bottling up your feelings until you blow.

Brainwaves – activities and puzzles. Finding things in pictures and other picture puzzles. Word finds (since this is a shaped word-find to match the magazine theme, I would guess it’s done in house and consider only offering more unusual puzzles). Also color-related sayings. And a riddle whose answer is found by coloring in color-coded picture.

Mini-Mag – each issue of AG has a mini mag girls can make that matches the issue.

Colorful poster pullout

Help! – advice column (girls ask about what to do about girls making fun, siblings who break things, reaching goals, life with braces, embarrassing parents, school stress, and losing a pet). Help columns in tween magazines are great sources of age-appropriate conflict that could turn into fiction ideas!

This page last updated on 01 May 2007