“Several short stories were originally published in American Girl Magazine. Each was accompanied with full-color illustrations and a small ‘Meet the Author’ section. Some early ones had something akin to Looking Back sections, however, many of these focused on multiple time periods. The historical after details began to be phased out in 1996. Most of the stories occur simultaneously during the events of the characters' Central Series, though some happen before or after, and are canonical to the character's series.

Sometimes short stories were replaced with American Girl Magazine Plays, excerpts from other books or historical stories, or reprints of previously published short stories.

The short stories were slowly transitioned out of the magazines around 1999 as the magazine shifted towards being independent from the Historical Characters and more focused on modern girls and their personal situations.

Two of Addy’s short stories made available in the American Girl Magazine were ‘Together We Sail’ (Mar/Apr 1996) and ‘The Little Brother’ (Jan/Feb 1999).

From 1999 to 2003, the short stories were released in individual, hardback book form yearly. The books were about five inches tall and four inches wide, with a character's personal color as the spine color. Each story included illustrations, vignettes, and sometimes Looking Back sections that had accompanied the stories in the magazine; others had redone illustrations to reflect changes or new illustrators, including later released outfits. After-story crafts, recipes, and activities were also included both for stories that had been in the magazine. Retail cost was $3.95.

Addy had three more stories written over the years. Titles of several stories were changed to include the character's name prominently.

The stories were also sold as box sets, combining the year's short stories into a six or seven book set. Box sets were also sold in groups of three for Felicity, Josefina, Kirsten, Addy, Samantha, and Molly which contained the story books released from 1999 to 2001. The individual short stories were phased out in late 2005, leaving Josefina, Kirsten, Addy, Samantha, and Molly with five individual volumes each, Kaya with one story, Felicity with four, and Kit with two.

In 2006, the short stories for each character were bound into a single book of five short stories with a ribbon bookmark and a raised picture on the cover from one of the stories. While the Looking Back sections were kept and added for new stories, all the activities and the individual ‘Meet The Author’ flashbacks were removed with one overarching ‘Meet the Author’ section instead. The five-story books were phased out in 2007. No Historical Character has received any short stories since the collection's final retirement. (American Girl Wiki, 2023)