KARITO KIDS: Lulu

I just finished Lulu's book after taking a little break from these.

Lulu's is a lot like Pita's. You learn the most about Kenya from the section in the back, not from the story, and what you do learn in the story is mostly bad, because, again like with Pita's book, it's the giant divide between the wealthy and the poor and between different groups.

Lulu's book also has troublesome parents. Her mother runs a kids' TV show and sucks up to the rich station owner to the point of compromising her daughter's integrity. Her father doesn't stick up for Lulu, even though he knows she's right. Neither parent seriously corrects their younger son when he's being blatantly prejudiced. Apparently, Kenya's got a lot of different groups in it and each one has a certain stereotype. Yeah, maybe that's something you should address properly in a children's book by having the characters who act prejudiced be clearly in the wrong? But no.

Same thing as with Pita's book. Her mother never gets over herself. Lulu's asshole little brother never gets any sort of comeuppance for being a prejudiced douche. He had a bet with Lulu over the guilt or innocence of the man she spends the entire book defending and they didn't take even one sentence to have her gleefully tell him she won the bet or have him admit that he was wrong. Perfect opportunity for him to learn a lesson about stereotyping, but nope. The author just let it slide.

Lulu's book also had a Ling-like level of danger going on that made it feel less believable.

Not her stock outfit!

Lulu is still a very likeable character despite all the nonsense going on in her book. I liked the basic plotline. They just took the danger element a bit too far. And I really wish, like with Pita's, that they'd spent more time in positive cultural things and showing that people with prejudices are severely in the wrong. If they could take the time to spend several pages revealing that the jerky rich son of the jerky rich station owner was actually not that bad a kid, then they could have slipped another lesson in there, too.

KARITO KIDS: Pita

I tend to forget how much I love Pita until I read her book. I remember this happening when I first read them, too. I didn't expect her to be a favorite, but she might be my fave character after Gia.

Pita comes from a very wealthy Mexican family. I read this last night, but I think her father was a senator and her mom a former model.

So they've got money and status.

Pita, however, is not your stereotypical spoiled girl at all.

Pita just wants to get out of her "cage" and be allowed to actually do more things. She's not being ridiculous about this either. Her mother is easily the most terrible parent in all these books so far. She's obsessed with status and appearances and doesn't care anything about substance. Pita gets bitched at for wearing a cowboy hat, wearing jeans, going riding with the daughter of someone who works for her grandfather. Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch.

Her dad seems a bit better, especially when he opens up to her and tells her their family history.

Pita's mystery is that her beloved horse disappeared when they arrived at her grandfather's ranch. There's a search for her with some red herrings and family secrets mixed in. She's found, of course, and so is someone else.

Very vague, I know, but I don't want to give it away.

Pita's book is odd to me, because I really enjoyed it, even though it's even worse than Ling's when it comes to teaching us about the location. You learn next to nothing about Mexico from this book. Except for the section at the end. Pita talks about food a couple times and Quinceañera, but the most you learn about Mexico is actually bad, because it's about the old families that think they're better than others and the great differences in wealth between the classes.

The odd part is that I didn't care that I wasn't learning or that we weren't going to see any other locations in Mexico. I got caught up in Pita and her story and I cared about that.

So yes, the book is pretty much a complete failure if you're looking at it from a teaching about a different culture standpoint, but Pita makes it work because she's such a loveable character. Her grandfather is a good character, too, and the family history makes it worth reading. I just wish someone had told her mom to shut the fuck up and get over herself. She's such a snobby bitch.

KARITO KIDS: Zoe

Zoe! Okay, so I've honestly only read this series of books once before and that was in summer 2008. I thought I'd reread them since, but I really don't think I ever did.

In summer 2008, I lived in New York City, as I mentioned in my post about Gia.

Zoe lives in New York City.

However, it's only now, upon rereading this book ten years later, that I've realized Zoe lived in the part of New York City that I would be moving to shortly after reading her book.

If I put the two together back then, I've since forgotten, but I honestly don't think I ever realized until now.

Not too long after I got into Karitos, I had to rush-move from Brooklyn to the West Village. I was caught up in a new job and a new internship and then in the fall, my classes started up again. So yeah, I was insanely busy and I honestly don't think I thought back to this book and went, "Hey, I live here now."

But rereading it now was an amazing experience, because Zoe went to so many places that I know. Every street she listed off is one I've walked down loads of times.

One flaw of Ling's book that I forgot to mention is that the mystery becomes bigger than the location. Gia's books did a good job of balancing mystery and learning about Italy. Ling's did not teach that much about China.

Zoe's book is definitely centered on the mystery, but it's still filled with a strong essence of New York. The details seem less important than Gia's Italy or Ling's China, because they seem less different than what a typical American is used to, but there is a difference. New York is like nowhere else I've ever lived and this book captures a lot of it, though people who have never lived there might miss out on that.

Zoe herself is a fun character, but not that unique. Her problem is that the writer (or Karito character designer) tried too hard to make her the quirky girl. She's a singer/songwriter/guitarist who's known for making up her own words and collecting hats. In trying so hard to be quirky, she becomes not unique but instead like every other quirky female character that's been written.

She's still really likeable and fun though. I enjoyed the book a lot and part of it was definitely her character. I shouldn't fault her for not being able to compete with the actual main character of the book: New York City.

No one can compete with New York.

KARITO KIDS: Ling

The second Karito Kids doll I bought was Ling! She's one of the loveliest Asian dolls in my collection.

Ling lives in Shanghai, China, which she hates. She's from Sichuan. So when her family has to move to Shanghai because her dad took a job with the zoo, she's not happy. The kids at her school all make fun of her because of her accent and her clothes. She relates it to being from Georgia or North Carolina and moving to New York City. Although people in NYC are a lot nicer than any of her classmates. NYC people are used to diversity. They're not gonna mock an accent. So not the best comparison, but you get the drift. Country mouse moves to the city.

Ling's mystery is some pretty hardcore adult stuff. Her father is a panda expert and the Shanghai zoo hired him from the panda reserve he used to work at, because they're setting up a new panda exhibit. A developer bought a couple pandas from the reserve and so Ling, who is already obsessed with pandas, has known these two as they grew up.

There's a problem though. Something is making the pandas sick. Ling gets herself in huge trouble at the beginning of the book and struggles throughout to help her panda friends despite basically constantly risking being in huge trouble.

She befriends a homeless boy, who helps her a couple times, including saving her life. Twice. There's also a mean girl and some red herrings before the villain is revealed.

The book is pretty solid, but also a bit over the top, so the believability is less than Gia's was. Although I think the writing is better in Ling's. Gia's second book had a point where the characters acted out of character and weren't believable in order to get the story where it needed to be. Ling's book doesn't have that problem, but to have an 11-year-old be almost killed twice in her mystery book is a little too much for me.

Ling is a really likeable character. She's got her own funky style and doesn't try to change herself to fit in at school. The bullying is ridiculous, considering even the teacher participates in it, but I do give the author points for not making the mean girl change her ways. She and Ling still hate each other at the end of the book.

Like Gia, Ling's book got a new cover design when the dolls got new outfits. I actually prefer the new cover because her hair matches the doll's, whereas the first cover did not. The doll did come with white stockings, too, like in the art, but I removed them when I got her.

KARITO KIDS: Gia

I knew about Karito Kids in 2007, but didn't fall for them until summer of 2008. I was living in New York City then, attending NYU, and had just moved into a teeny tiny single room ("apartment") in their newly-acquired Brooklyn dorm. I'd been living in that building for the entire 2007-2008 school year, but I'd used a combo of luck and connections to keep my super spacious double apartment all to myself, but that came to an end when summer semester began. I wasn't taking classes, but I was working for the school at the time, with plans to relocate to a different dorm in the West Village for fall semester.

So you know, it was the perfect time to start collecting a 22" doll line!

I decided to start by getting the set of five books, one mystery for each character, and using them to choose which doll to buy first.

I ended up with Gia from Italy, the fashionista of the bunch, which seems a bit of an unusual choice for me, but her doll is still one of my favorite larger-scale dolls of all time.

You might be able to see why from the picture below. She's just stunningly gorgeous.

Each book is a mystery set in each character's country. Gia is from Florence (Firenze), Italy.

Florence Fiasco is about how Gia's family runs a small pensione (hotel). She hates her job and the drab uniform she has to wear, because she has dreams of becoming big in the fashion world.

When an older designer decides to stay in their hotel while preparing for his big comeback at Fashion Week, a pair of expensive diamond-decorated shoes go missing. The blame falls on Gia, so she takes it upon herself to solve the mystery. The designer ends up believing her and even prepares a dress for her to wear to his show. Gia gets help from a brash American rich girl and the two try to solve the mystery.

However, Gia's hypotheses are way off until she realizes, while at the fashion show, who the culprit is and races back to the hotel to get the shoes and save the day.

These books were originally released as hardcovers with names based on the locations. When the dolls got a revamp with new clothing, the books became softcovers with new titles that included the girls' names. These are the same books though! They are not new ones.

Each Karito Kid got a single book...except Gia.

Gia's second book takes place after the first, when she wins a design contest in a kids' fashion magazine. She gets to see her designs made real and even gets to model in the photo shoot. Gia insists that the skinny models from a certain agency that the magazine wants to use don't represent her vision. She manages to get the lady in charge to agree with her and replaces the scrawny models with two friends that she met at the hotel and one of her Italian friends.

However, someone's got it out for Gia and her friends. They keep receiving threats, having near-misses with a crazy lady on a motorbike, and one girl's hair even gets temporarily dyed green.

Gia struggles with asking adults for help, because she doesn't want anything to stop the photo shoot, but also whenever she tries to tell someone, no one believes her. So of course things escalate and come to a head with no one seeing the truth until Gia outs the culprit at the end.

My only real complaint about the book is that some of the minor characters seem off. Her mother was the one who supported her dream in the first book, only to be the stubborn one in this second book. Her older sister has a sudden interest in cooking that I don't think was mentioned in the first book at all. And the entire sequence where they go out of town wasn't very well-written or believable.

Still, I liked both of Gia's books a lot. They're a fun ride and while she's obsessed with fashion, Gia also sees a lot of beauty everywhere around her. She gets inspiration from art and anyone who loves museums is excellent in my book.

I just wish they'd made the outfit on the cover of her second book! Her updated doll outfit was nowhere near that pretty and not as good as her original outfit either.