Arlington County Government, VA Newsmakers, 10 Apr 2013

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From YouTube: Valerie Tripp visits Cherrydale Library

Description

American Girls author Valerie Tripp recently visited the Cherrydale Library and discussed where the ideas for the stories came from, the creative process, research and the joys of writing. Adults and children of all ages were on hand to see manuscripts, hear stories from their favorite books, and of course, meet the dolls.

Valerie Tripp is the author of many historical fiction books in the American Girls Collection, including those about Felicity, Elizabeth, Josefina, Samantha, Nellie, Kit, Ruthie, Molly, and Emily. Tripp graduated with honors from the first coeducational class at Yale University in 1973 and received a Masters of Education from Harvard in 1981.

The Arlington Public Library has made the American Girl books and dolls available through donations recieved by Friends of the Library.

If you have an American Girl doll that you would like to donate, visit the donations page for Friends of the Library.

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On this edition of newsmakers Valerie trip, author of the popular American girl collection spoke to a packed house at the Cherrydale library, kids and adults of all ages were on hand to hear their favorite stories and how it all began. I.

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Started by planning out several of the different characters: Kirsten a Swedish immigrant Samantha girl lives at the turn of the last century and Molly who lived at the time of world war, two and I wrote what their life situations would be and then I had the privilege of choosing which one I wanted to write about, and I chose Molly and I'm really glad. I did because I just have had a wonderful time writing about Molly, so many times. I would have three centuries on my desk.

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At the same time, I would have Felicity my 18th century girl, Samantha my 19th century girl and Molly, my 20th century girl, all on my desk. At the same time, right after I graduated from college I was hired by a woman named pleasant Roland to work on a reading program.

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So it was pleasant idea to have books about girls, fiction, girls who lived in these different periods of American history and have small but very authentic objects, so that the girl, reading the story and playing with the doll would have an experience with the material culture of the period and the aesthetic of the period. As well and she said, you worry about the books and the historical periods she says, I've had this idea about the dolls and I said: oh, you know plenty, just that's all ideas, a good idea at all.

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So luckily, here we are more than 25 years later. Luckily, she paid no attention to me because it shan't turned out with a wonderful idea.

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That's it for this edition for more episodes of newsmakers visit our website at Arlington, Va TV.