Makena Williams and Book

Name: Makena Williams and Book

Made by and When: American Girl, 2021

Material: Vinyl head, arms, and legs; cloth body

Marks: (Head) ©AMERICAN GIRL; the cloth body tag reads: American Girl / 2017 / REG. NO. PA-9679 (HK) / MADE IN CHINA / SURFACE WASHABLE / LAVABLE UNIQUEMENT EN SURFACE / CE / 1186 MJ, 1, NL

Height: 18 inches

Hair, Eyes, Mouth: Dark brown, almost black hair styled in two-strand twists accented with three removable plastic gold tone butterfly clips; dark brown sleep eyes with attached upper bristle eyelashes and painted upper and lower eyelashes, open-closed mouth with two painted upper teeth

Clothes: Black short-sleeved T-shirt with rolled-up sleeves; the front of the T-shirt reads, “See me / HEAR ME / know me”; ombre purple-to-light pink pleated skirt that has a glittery gold waistband and a clear plastic American girl logo tag stitched to the side of the waistband; tan underwear, and pink vinyl sandals with pink elastic ankle straps.

Other: Makena (pronounced Ma-kay-na) is part of the “World By Us” American Girl series which encourages children to work together to begin building a future now that works for everyone. Makena’s book, See me, Hear Me, Know Me, by Denise Lewis Patrick is included with the basic doll purchase. The book is described as follows:

Thirteen-year-old Makena has a passion for fashion. She loves putting clothes together in unexpected ways. When school went virtual because of the pandemic, Makena started sharing her style by posting her OOTD (outfit of the day). Now she’s back to school in person and meeting some of her fashion followers for the first time. Clothes are a way for Makena to connect with others—like her new friends, Evette and Maritza.

But some people don’t see Makena for who she is. They only see her as a Black girl, and they make unfair assumptions. After she experiences a racist incident in her own neighborhood, Makena decides to use fashion to speak up about injustice. Her style becomes her story.

 Video

One of the chapters in Makena’s book is narrated by the author at the following link.

https://www.facebook.com/americangirl/videos/267097478561487

Gallery

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Published by DeeBeeGee

Doll collector, historian, co-founder of the first e-zine devoted to collecting black dolls; author of black-doll reference books, doll blogs, and doll magazine articles.

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