In Japan today, girls and families are arranging special celebratory dolls, or Hello Kitty, in shrine like patterns. The best room in the house is chosen to host the dolls for the day as a way of celebrating health, happiness and prosperity of girls.

Doll day or not, we have Russian Dolls lining the window, Cabbage Patch kids stuffed in our closet and weird garage sale dolls with missing legs – hanging from hooks and huddles of Barbies acting kinky amongst lipstick and Advil. There are entire shelves lined with particular types of dolls ordered from tall to short and special boxes with little tiny dolls that sit alongside sparkly costume jewelery. Yes arranging dolls has always been a cathartic thing. Hmm – but if we had to arrange our top dolls in a special room, which one’s would we choose?

One question leads to another and we started to contemplate which dolls hold more meaning for us? Which one’s played a stronger influence growing up? Is it the story of how we received the doll that makes it so special? Or the way she looks at us? Cute factor?

Last week we met a woman, Jen Groover, who’s developing a new line of dolls in the US that aren’t limited to the princess-goldilocks type that hog the toy shelves. The brand is called “Leader Girlz”, with the goal to provide young girls with healthy role models in play. Groover pitched the idea to several toy manufacturing big-wigs to which the response was continually “THAT WON’T SELL, Mom’s don’t want to buy that.” To which she disputed, “I’m a mom, and I do.” Currently the doll brand is in production, so we shall see if the young leaders take off and if they can cause a dent in the billion dollar BRATZ phenomenon. (most obnoxious and promiscuous dolls to ever hit the shelves)