American Girl School Stories
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The Central Series
Each American Girl character’s story is presented in the form of books. Called the Central Series, they are the core main stories about each Historical Character, covering the full initial story of each character over a span of approximately two years.
School Stories
The second book in each Central Series for the Historical Characters is their school story. Each school story is titled, “Historical Character Learns a Lesson: A School Story.” These books take place in the fall, often within a short span of time after the events of their first book, “Meet Historical Character.”
Each Historical Character starts their formal education, and in some cases starts school for the first time, such as Addy. Additionally, if each Historical Character has not not already met or knows her Best Friend in their first book, will meets them during —this story. A notable example is when Kirsten meets Singing Bird.
The Historical Characters both learn educational lessons and a personal lesson outside of a classroom setting that expands or changes their perspective and helps to lead to personal maturity and growth. Oftentimes, the outside lesson reflects or is influenced by larger scale historical events occurring.
The Historical Characters use the lesson learned near the end of the book, often to praise or reward. For example, Addy denouncing Harriet's prejudice and winning the class spelling bee. Or Josefina understanding that her Tia Dolores's new ways and becoming literate does not mean forgetting her Mama’s lessons--and in fact they can be used to always remember things Mama taught her and her sisters.
Variations from the Initial Central Series
Kaya: Kaya's stories do not follow the traditional patterns or titles set by the first seven historical characters, as Kaya's Indigenous culture is unique from the dominant American cultural pattern. Her story line is written so that she does have several parallel events, such as a winter festival and a summer "trip" to a new location not seen before in the books; however, she does not have the lifestyle or culture of the prior characters.
Julie: Julie's stories do not follow the set title pattern given by previous characters, same as Kaya before her. The title changes did not confirm that the original pattern was being discarded or due to the varying events present in Julie's series until Rebecca's release. However, the main stories are loosely equivalent and are not titled in the same format.
Rebecca: Rebecca's stories do not follow the traditional titles and was confirmation that the traditional titles and patterns that had been in place for the first seven characters would most likely no longer be used. The main stories still are loosely equivalent to the original series and keep to the same pattern.
Cécile and Marie-Grace: Cécile and Marie-Grace's series do not follow the traditional titles or styles. Instead of covering two or so years, the Central Series only covers approximately one year in the two girls' connected lives.
Caroline: Caroline's series loosely follows the pattern seen in previous Historical Characters' series in terms of seasonal setting. However, they do not align to events in the same order as the others, except for the Meet Book.
Maryellen: Maryellen was the first character launched wholly within BeForever, so she was never given a separate six-book format and was released with the two-book "classic" volumes that lacked all illustrations. However, her books can be loosely sectioned off internally into the first style of a six-book format, as seen with earlier characters. This includes a school story with two separate lessons.
Melody: Unlike Maryellen, Melody's classic-volume books are not as easily sectioned off internally or tied tightly to the original six-book format. While stories can be divided into vaguely defined sections, there is no tightly-knit six-book structure, unlike those connected to many prior characters. In this, her volumes read a lot more like a single book each rather than three books combined into one volume.
Nanea: Like Melody before her, Nanea's classic-volume books are not sectioned off internally into the six-book format. Each volume is written as a fully flowing story with multiple chapters from the start of the volume to the end. Her books start in Fall 1941. While this is rather late compared to earlier series, which tended to start in either summer or early fall, this was done so that the book directly covers the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the after-effects of the attack on their family, and extended family, and Hawaii as a territory. Because of the aftereffects of the attack and damage in her community, Nanea does not resume going to school again until February 1942 which is covered in her second volume.
Courtney: Like Nanea before her, Courtney's books are not sectioned off internally into the six-book format and each volume is written as a fully flowing story with multiple chapters from start to end. Like Melody and Nanea, her first volume is a complete story, not written in sections.