This tells you all how busy I am and how long I've been away from the board--

I just TODAY went to the AG site to see if the new mystery books were released yet, and saw the new outfits and accessories! How long have they been out? I bet you guys knew about them before that too. It seems like I used to be the first one to know about everything and now I am the last. Ah, life!

I'm disappointed in the new outfits, though. They don't have *anything* to do with the new books, and they aren't even for the same girls who got new books, except Samantha! And Samantha's bike is another continuity problem for AG--her bike wasn't three wheeled, it was two wheeled (that's why she had problems learning how to ride it) and it wasn't Uncle Gard's from the carriage house, it was a gift to her from Gard & Cornelia (I think--it's been awhile since I read that book). How hard would it have been to have made the bike match the book? It seems to me that AG is just releasing new outfits and accessories for the sake of new outfits and accessories, and through that strategy, continuing to de-emphasize the importance of the books and reading, which was so important to the historical line at first. It seems all they really care about is keeping people in a cycle of buying, not enhancing the relationship between the books and the dolls by integrating the outfits and accessories with the books, which I think was the whole POINT in the beginning. Anyone else feel this way, esp. anyone who fell in love with the old AG in the 80's and early 90's?