Dress up the mother and daughter dolls and learn about fashion through the decades!

Dress up the mother and daughter dolls and learn about different traditional costumes from around the world!

A collection of four paper dolls with 28 different bridal outfits from around the world.

A legendary fashion designer for Barbie shares the story of her adventures working behind-the-scenes at Mattel, and spotlights the creations that transformed the world’s most famous doll into a style icon in this beautifully designed book—published in commemoration of Barbie’s sixtieth anniversary—illustrated with 100 full-color photographs, including many never-before-seen images of rare and one-of-a-kind pieces from the author’s private archive. Dressing Barbie is a dazzling celebration of the clothes that made America’s favorite doll, and the incredible woman behind them. For thirty-five years, Carol Spencer enjoyed an unparalleled reign as a Barbie fashion designer, creating some of Barbie’s most iconic looks from the early 1960s until the late 1990s. Barbie’s wide-ranging wardrobe—including princess gowns and daisy-print rompers, flirty sundresses and smart pantsuits— combined fashion trends and haute couture with a liberal dose of fantasy. In Dressing Barbie, the successful and prolific designer reminisces about her time at Mattel working with legendary figures such as Ruth Handler, Barbie’s creator, and Charlotte Johnson, the original Barbie designer, and talks about her best and most beloved clothing designs from each decade. But Carol’s most impressive creation is her own life. As Handler famously said, “Barbie always represented the fact that a girl has choices”—a credo Carol epitomized. In Dressing Barbie, she talks candidly about how she broke free of the constraints of the late 1950s to pursue a dazzling career and an independent life for herself. Over the course of her successful and prolific career, Carol won many accolades. She was the first designer to have her signature on the doll, the first to go on a signing tour, the first to design a limited-edition Barbie Doll for collectors, and the designer of the biggest selling Barbie of all time. Now, Carol is the first member of the inner circle to take fans behind the pink curtain, revealing the fashion world of Barbie, the quintessential California girl, as never before.

Introduced on a grand scale at the 1925 Paris International Exposition, the new Art Deco style expressed modernity and new technologies that were changing the world. In the realm of fashion, it was the new "chic," representing glamour, luxury, and a sleek style. Tom Tierney captures fashion highlights from that period in this spectacular paper doll review. Two dolls and 28 costumes focus on an array of dramatic creations by outstanding designers of the early twentieth century. Included are a fur-trimmed cloak with an abstract modern design by Paul Poiret; a tightly pleated and richly colored gown by Mariano Fortuny; Helen Dryden’s day dress in stark zebra stripes; a daring, two-piece knit swimsuit, featuring a bare midriff; as well as dramatic designs by Sonia Delaunay, Jeanne Lanvin, Coco Chanel, and other noted designers. An additional page features hats of the period — everything from an exotic Poiret turban to Schiaparelli's novel "shoe" hat. An exciting display of elegant style and cool sophistication, this collection will not only delight paper doll fans but will also thrill collectors and devotees of Art Deco.

A lonely doll named Edith finally finds friendship with two visiting teddy bears.

He’s not a stray house cat, he’s an immortal being. And now he must choose whether to return to his planet or remain with his new human friend in a humorous, heart-tugging story from the author of I, Cosmo. The cat that Olive rescues from a flood has a secret: he’s not really a cat at all, but an alien who crashed to Earth on a beam of light. The cat, whom Olive names Leonard, was prepared to visit the planet as a human—but something went wrong. Now Leonard may never know what it’s like to hold an umbrella, go bowling, or host a dinner party. (And his human jokes still need some work: Knock, knock. Who’s there? Just Leonard. It is me.) While Olive worries about whether she will have to move after her mom and her new boyfriend get back from their summer vacation, Leonard tries to figure out how to get from South Carolina to Yellowstone National Park, because if he’s not there at the end of the month, he’ll miss his ride home. But as Olive teaches Leonard about the beautiful and confusing world of humans, he starts to realize how much he cares about this particular one. A sweet and dryly funny story about what it means to be human—and what it means to be home.