Published: July 04, 2008 12:34 pm            

American Girls

About 35 girls celebrated the recent release of “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl” movie with a tea party at Helen Matthes Library in Effingham Tuesday afternoon.

The movie premiered Wednesday and is based on the “American Girl” book series about Kittredge, a girl growing up during the Great Depression who has a nose for news.

“I’ll have a manual typewriter for them to dabble with, because Kit was a real newshound. I’m sure some of the girls have never seen that before,” said Youth Services Librarian Shirley Marshall.

Patty Winn, a local story teller, told the girls what life was like during the Great Depression.

“You girls are in fancy dresses, but we wore hand-me-downs. It was a lot of money to go to the movies; it was a whole dime. We didn’t eat milk in cereal; we ate it with water,” she said.

Food for the tea party was provided by Amiee Moore of Delectables by Design, who also told the crowd about tea party etiquette.

“We must sip tea, not slurp. We’re not drinking soup out of a bowl. At a tea party, the hostess decides when it is over. Until she sets her napkin at the left side of the plate (a sign that she is done eating), you shouldn’t leave,” Moore said.

Not all the girls were interested in following the rules of a fancy tea party and eating their food in small bites.

Second-grader Annika Koester didn’t think her friend was being “dainty” enough when she “ate a whole cupcake without biting.”

The girls were encouraged to dress in period-style clothing and have their picture taken with their “American Girl” dolls. Then they decorated old-fashion photo frames and took the pictures home as a memento.

Maddie Tegeler, a third grader at St. Anthony Grade School, said she likes the “American Girl” dolls because they’re neat, and she thinks the movie is going to be good.

The girls also could buy new outfits for their dolls from Sally Wakefield of Shumway who has been making doll clothes for nearly 30 years.

“I’ve been making doll clothes since 1979 when the ‘Cabbage Patch’ dolls came out. Then I found out about ‘American Girl’ dolls. I spend all my free time making them. I hardly make anything else,” Wakefield said.

Angie Faller can be reached at 217-347-7151 ext. 131 or angie.faller@

effinghamdailynews.com.