Unless you've got a 6-11 year-old girl in your life, you've probably managed to avoid the notorious American Girl Place at the Grove (and you consider yourself lucky, indeed). Oh, you've heard tell of their ostentatious parties for little darlings and their little darling dollies (that's around $90 a pop to sip tiny cups of tea and get matching hairdos for each girl and her girl doll) but you've steered clear, right?* more ›

Before we all start shaking in our Ugg boots, rest assured that the mecca of trend and materialism known as The Grove has been spared from international threat. The LA Times is reporting that 20 year-old Jarrad Willis of Melbourne, Australia, has been arrested by authorities in his home country for allegedly threatening on a blog to cause some kind of harm to The Grove. He's been charged with something called "creating a false belief"... more ›

If you've been to the Grove lately, you know about the American Girl Doll phenomenon: 7 year old girls dragging around $86 dolls with matching clothing that sells for about $80 per outfit for the girl (and $25 per outfit for the doll). Every westside 2nd grader must have a doll, and leaving the Grove without $300 worth of American Girl Place Merchandise is a cause for shame. Despite the fact that dolls were... more ›

The American Girl dolls and books now made by El Segundo-based Mattel are set in various, often polarized periods of American history, so that the plucky heroines experience, and have to make their own decisions about, situations in the American Revolution, the Victorian Industrial Revolution, the abolition of slavery, and other American turning points of the past. more ›