A fascinating and poignant collection of twenty essays and five poems exploring Barbie's forty years of hateful, lovely, disastrous, glorious influence on us all from award-winning authors such as Jane Smiley, Meg Wolitzer, and Carol Shields. To some she's a collectible, to others she's trash. Since her creation in 1959 by Ruth Handler, Barbie has become a worldwide icon and an extremely divisive topic. To some she represents an inspiration to young girls, to others she has only wreaked havoc on feminist progress. No other tiny shoulders have ever had to carry the weight of such affection and derision, and no other book has ever paid this notorious little place of plastic her due. The twenty-three authors who contributed to this book—including Meg Wolitzer, Jane Smiley, Carol Shields, Anna Quindlen, and Ann duCille—explore how Barbie has affected their lives, and delve into the numerous controversies Barbie has faced over past decades and the complex issues of race and conformity in the toy industry. Whether you adore her or abhor her, The Barbie Chronicles will have you looking at her in ways you never imagined. No longer just a child's plaything, "Barbie has become an icon and a fetishAto some angelic, to others depraved." In honor of Barbie's 40th birthday, McDonough (Tying the Knot) has collected 20 stories and five poems in one volume: Steven Dubins's essay on Barbie's origins as a German pornographic doll; Jane Smiley on Barbie's "genius," which took girls from big hairdos and pink jeans to women's self-knowledge and rights; Anna Quindlen on her desire to "drive a stake through Barbie's plastic heart"; and a lots of essays with priceless titles ("Barbie Does Yom Kippor" and "Sex and the Single Doll"). Speaking largely to today's 30- to 45-year-olds, the varying intellectual and emotional perspectives here make for an engaging blend of idiosyncratic remarks and in-depth social commentary. Comparable in its irreverent style to Adios, Barbie: Young Women Write About Body Images and Identity (Seal Pr.-Feminist,1998); recommended for public and academic libraries.AKay Meredith Dusheck, Univ. of Iowa, Anamosa Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. A collection of essays, and some poems, about the posable plastic icon at the 40th anniversary of her creation. Everyone has an opinion about the Barbie doll. Created in 1959 by the founders of Mattel (and named for their daughter Barbara), she was the first American-made doll to represent the world beyond the nursery, and if her proportions are unreal, her influence on millions of little girls, as well as on popular culture, is indisputable. McDonough, whose 1997 essay in the New York Times Magazine was the jumping off point for this book (and who is a former Kirkus contributor), has herein gathered a diverse and mostly talented group of writers to celebrate, denigrate, and otherwise explain what Barbie has come to stand for in American society. Exemplifying as it did the conflicted mores of the late 1950s, with her body that, while obviously sexual, lacks nipples or genitals, the creation of the Barbie doll also coincided with the second wave of feminism and the surge of the civil rights movement. The best essays in this collection discuss Barbie as seen through the lenses of sexuality, gender, and race. In ``Barbie Meets Bouguereau,'' Carol Ockman places Barbies body in context of other idealized notions of feminine beauty. In ``Black Like Me,'' Ann duCille explores the Mattel companys many attempts to create Barbie dolls of color and realizes that the message of their packaging, meant to convey black pride, ``is clearly tied to bountiful hair, lavish and exotic clothes, and other external signs of beauty, wealth, and success.'' Sherrie Inness points out that Barbie alone, in contrast to other dolls on the market, represents independent single women and their diverse career options. Good, bad, or indifferent, theres obviously still fun to be had in playing with Barbie dolls. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Caroline Preston author of Jackie by Josie From the spring day in 1959 when I dumped my Ginny doll for the new flashy babe on the block, I have adored Barbie. When she was finally exposed as a sexist stereotype, my adoration, undiminished, went underground. The Barbie Chronicles celebrates our complex forty-year love/hate relationship toward the world's most irresistible doll. Hilton Als author of The Women The pieces and poems in this book so rich in insight and wit, mean so much -- to cultural and political studies, to the life of the mind, to those who have given thought of affection to this strange and strangely alluring figure which, despite her initial docility, refuses to remain seated on anyone's shelf. Faye Moskowitz author of A Leak in the Heart Whatever your position on the world's most persistent posable piece of plastic, you'll find much to intrigue you in