User summary:
American Girl is an American line of 18-inch dolls released in 1986 by Pleasant Company. The dolls portray eight- to twelve-year-old girls of a variety of ethnicities, time periods of origin, faiths, and social classes.
The 1986 Historical Characters product line aims to teach aspects of American history through dolls and a six-book series from the perspective of a girl living in that time period.
In 2014 a line of Beforever dolls was produced to modernize the Historical Characters product line. Each character in the product line was accompanied by a "Journey Book", with players taking the role of a present-day girl who has found her way to the past and met up with one of the Historical Characters.
The Beforever books are written in the familiar "choose-your-own-adventure" style and targeted at children; they are intended to be both educational and entertaining. Most titles have been published in a variety of formats, occasionally with significant editing.