Author: Renee Rosen
Publisher: Berkley
ISBN: 9780593335680
A woman challenges all thenorms of society and business when she proposes a new type of toy forher company to create. As she and the others on her core team fightskepticism and obstacles along the way, their journey will lead themto change pop culture and history. Author Renee Rosen dives deep intothe boardrooms and the homes of all the key players behind theworld’s most famous doll in the excellent novel, Let’s Call HerBarbie.
It's the 1950s, and RuthHandler is on vacation with her family in Europe when she and herdaughter spot a doll unlike any they’ve ever seen before. Eventhough Ruth’s daughter, Barbara, is a little too old to play withdolls now, she still loves collecting them especially unusual ones.The German doll Bild Lilli is exceptionally unusual.
For starters, she’s agrown woman and not a baby doll. Her curves and her paintedexpression suggest that she might be a better toy for young menrather than little girls. But Ruth sees beyond Bild Lilli. She seesan opportunity to fill a gaping niche that the market doesn’t evenknow exists yet.
As one of the founders ofthe toymaker, Mattel, Ruth and her husband, Elliot, have experienceda variety of successes. Ruth, though, wants to do something trulygroundbreaking. She’s wanted to change the perception and the lookof dolls for a while now, and Bild Lilli gives her just the push sheneeds to shove her ideas front and center in the boardroom.
At first everyone resistsas hard as they can, particularly key engineer Jack Ryan. In additionto balking at a doll with breasts, Jack has a hundred reasonablequestions for how to design a grown woman doll. He’s been integralto the creation and design of so many other Mattel success stories,and he knows how to challenge Ruth like no one else—not evenElliot—can.
Ruth is undeterred. Eversince coming back from Europe, the ideas keep coming. She wants toencourage young girls to think beyond marriage and motherhood. Whycan’t little girls also be astronauts and teachers? Why can’t adoll be a role model for all their potential future selves?
Look at her. She’srunning a successful toy company while parenting her two children.It’s true that Elliot usually steps in more with Barbara and Ken,their son, but Ruth’s love for her children is resolute. If she canbe a working woman with it all, so can a doll and so can thousands ofother little girls across the country. Maybe even the world.
Despite those initialnaysayers, Ruth presses on. Eventually she brings Jack, Elliot, andmany of her core team around to the idea. By hiring key designers tomake sure the doll—who they decide to call Barbie—has a wardrobeunlike any other, Ruth knows that Mattel is entering a new era.
Through countlessfrustrations, financial and personal setbacks, and many argumentsabout how Barbie should be launched, how she should look, and whethershe needs a man in her life, the team at Mattel will rally time andtime again to change the way society looks at dolls, and perhaps evenwomen, forever.
Author Renee Rosen is aseasoned writer in the historical women’s fiction space and isclearly at ease with her main characters in this book. Rosen choosesto focus on Ruth, Jack, and the designers, Charlotte Johnson andStevie Klein, who come on board to style Barbie’s first looks.While the omniscient narration may throw some readers early on,Rosen’s confident writing style will quickly bring them around.
Rosen doesn’t waste timegetting into the crux of the initial problems with Barbie: heracceptance by the team at Mattel and then by customers at large.While the Barbie movie allowed audiences to interact with Barbieherself in a unique way, Rosen takes readers back to the literaldrawing board where the doll was born. She shares tidbits of Barbiehistory in a novel that is compelling, engaging, and fast-paced.Readers will find themselves getting involved in the lives of Ruth,Jack, Stevie, and everyone else and thinking about them when they’renot reading.
Although the book feelslike it’s skating across the surface in some scenes and doesindulge in minor information dumps, for the most part the novel is anabsolute delight. Those who love pop culture history will definitelywant to read this one. I recommend readers Bookmark Let’s Call HerBarbie by Renee Rosen.