Team Caroline

Have you ever thought about how many people are involved with producing the American Girl books, dolls, and accessories? It takes a whole team to see such a big project through from idea to publication!

My books about Caroline Abbott, American Girl’s newest historical character, will be available very soon. I’ve loved hearing from readers who are eager to read Caroline’s stories.

I’m eager for publication day too. I spent over three years researching, writing, and revising those six books:  Meet Caroline, Caroline’s Secret Message, A Surprise For Caroline, Caroline Takes A Chance, Caroline’s Battle, and Changes for Caroline.  But I didn’t work alone.

A researcher is assigned to each book project, which is wonderful—most publishing companies aren’t able to do this! As I began researching 1812, the time period for Caroline’s stories, the researcher helped identify good sources of information. He reviewed drafts of each story, checking for errors. He contacted expert historians and asked them to review the stories as well. The researcher also found many of the historic objects and images that helped inspire Caroline’s clothing and belongings.

Here’s researcher Mark Speltz at work in the library.  He’s great at finding resources I might have missed!

I also worked closely with my editor. When we started developing story ideas for Caroline, we had lots of meetings to discuss possibilities. Once I started writing the stories, the editor carefully reviewed each draft. She told me what she thought worked well, and offered suggestions to help make the story better. We worked through many drafts for each of the six stories.

Peg Ross, my editor, spends a lot of time reading through my manuscripts to make sure the stories are strong and flow well. We’ve worked on 15 books together!

In addition to the primary editor, other editors at American Girl read each draft and offered feedback. As we finalized each story, copyeditors helped make sure that each word and sentence and paragraph was clear, and that I hadn’t made mistakes with grammar and punctuation.

While the editors and I worked on the stories, the art director was working with the artists chosen to illustrate the Caroline books. They discussed ideas for cover art and the illustrations. The artists created rough sketches of their ideas, just as I wrote rough drafts. And while I revised my stories, the artists revised their paintings. The final results are fantastic!

Meanwhile, other people were busy developing the Caroline doll to represent the heroine of my stories. They also created her accessories, and the paper doll and crafts books that will accompany her. The talented people involved with those projects worked with the editor and researcher, so everything was connected.

As you can see, it takes a lot of people to launch a new historical character like Caroline. Everyone I’ve met at the company is passionate about what they do.  Everyone cares very much about American Girl readers, and has high standards for producing books that are fun to read and historically accurate.

And everyone is as excited about launch day as I am.  Check back in early September, and I’ll have a lot more to share about Caroline Abbott!

Tags: American Girl, Caroline Abbott, Meet Caroline