By Alexandra, age 11
This interview was conducted LIVE with Ms. Tripp in her home in Maryland.
Thanks to Alexandra, her mother, Ms. Rome, and Ms. Tripp for making this live interview possible.

AK: Why do you think the books and the dolls were such a success for American Girl? VT: I think the credit goes to girls just like you. I think that what happened was before this: people hadn't written historical fiction about girls of just your age. Girls are very curious about the past, and girls of your age are interested about what it would have been like to live in these different periods of time. So, I think that the reason why the American Girl Collection was such a success because of girls just like you who are smart, curious, observant, and one more very important thing: empathetic. I think that girls of your age have the ability to empathize, to have compassion, and to enter into the life that the character lived. I always hoped that when you read the book about Molly, you would become friends with Molly and you would empathize with Molly and that would be the reason why you cared what was happening. You know, when something is happening with a friend of yours, you care about it because you care about your friend. So, I think because girls who read the books made friends with the characters, they cared about what was going on in World War II. So, they learned about the historical aspects of the stories at the same time they were friends with the characters. I think the success should be credited to girls like you. AK: Who are your favorite characters? VT: Well, I like all of them for different reasons. I couldn't really say that one character is my absolute favorite to write about. They're all so different. I like Felicity because she's impulsive and brave. It gives me a chance to see what it's like to be impulsive and brave. I like Josephina because she had such a big heart. She was so kind. I like Samantha because it was [in] an interesting time [period]. It was a time when people were making interesting choices I like Kit because she was a writer and it's fun to write about it. When you're a writer, you get permission to write about a lot of things. I like Molly because she's mischievous. She was getting herself into interesting funny situations. AK: How are the characters like you? VT: As a writer, you can have the characters be like you in certain ways and find out what it would be like to try new things. I like Felicity because she's brave -- like in the book Felicity Saves the Day. She gets on horse, and I'm not sure that I would be that brave. Felicity is unlike me in some ways. I like to experiment to find out what it would be like to be that way. The characters are optimistic. I believe that if you work hard and try to do the best you can, things will work out for best. Their attitude toward life is the same as my attitude toward life. AK: What kind of stories do you like to read and write? VT: I love to write stories that have a little bit of humor. I like to have humor. I like to have adventure. I like to have it where you're not sure what is going to happen next. I reread Josephina Saves the Day, and I thought -- "I hope Patrick didn't rob them of those blankets. I hope he turns out to be an honest person." I love suspense. I like things that are funny, that have adventure and suspense; a couple of different things going on all at the same time. AK: Where do you get inspiration? VT: It all starts with the history -- doing the research about the particular time when the character lived. I've been researching my whole life for the Kit stories because ever since 11 I have been interested in Eleanor Roosevelt. When it came time to write Kit's story, I already knew about the depression. Historical research helps me know what the character's personality should be like. Kit had to be a very determined person because the depression was a very discouraging period of time. It was a very trying period of time. Kit was going to have to be a girl who didn't give up easily. So it all begins with history. History is my inspiration. Another source of inspiration is girls just like you. I like to think of the story as a ribbon that connects the girl that lived a long time ago with the girl who is reading it now. It is a ribbon of connection made up of things you have in common like going to school, doing things with your family, making friends. I think about girls living in 2008 and I think about their life experiences, and what those same experiences might feel like if they lived in New Mexico in 1824, or in 1904 like Samantha. My readers are a huge source of inspiration. History is also a great source of inspiration. AK: Do you look at ending before you start at the beginning? VT: A lot of times I don't know how the story is going to end when I start. Sometimes things surprise me. Take, for example, Josephina. I didn't intend for Tia Dolores and Papa to end up together. But as story went along that changed. It is what the characters wanted. That would be happy ending for Josephina. When I begin writing about a character I plan out what's going to happen in the first book, and what's going to happen in the second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth. But it gets pretty cloudy and vague about the 5th or 6th book. I'm not really sure what's going to happen there. It's fun, isn't it? That's what makes writing fun. Sometimes you will say, I thought I might have it end this way, but I don't know, you kinda know what the right ending is. AK: When did you start to write and publish books? VT: I started to write when I was a student in school just like you. My teachers would ask me to write poems, letters, imaginary stories, and I had a story published in the newspaper when I was 11. That was very thrilling. I knew my mother and father thought writing well was a good thing to do. So I thought it would be fun to write stories as a job. In college, I worked for a publishing company. My first job was to write stories to help children learn how to read. I was about 22 years old. It was 1974 and I?ve been writing ever since. AK: How can you tell the difference between a good paragraph and a bad one? VT: It's just obvious to a writer. Sometimes I write the whole paragraph. Sometimes it can take a whole week to write a paragraph. Then I cross it out; it didn't work. Sometimes paragraphs just flow along. They feel smooth. Other times it is a terrible struggle. Sometimes editors will say, "We loved that paragraph." I know when it feels like a good paragraph to me. I like to get the characters in conversation. If I can have them talking to each other, that usually works out pretty well. I don't like a lot of interior thought. I like Kit and Ruthie talking to each other and working out the problem. AK: What time in your life do you remember you had to make a sacrifice like Kit? VT: Right after college I started working and then I decided I wanted to go back to graduate school because I was writing stories to help children learn how to read, and I wanted to study myself to learn how to read -- that's my big goal -- to encourage children to learn how to read and to help children learn how to read. I decided I wanted to go back to graduate school so I had to work very hard to save money to pay for graduate school. When I went back, I had to live very simply -- not have a car -- not drive very much. Not buy any new clothes or furniture, anything I didn?t absolutely need so that I could pay for graduate school. AK: If you could go back and live in one time era, which would you choose and why? VT: Sometimes I think I would like to live on a ranch like Josephina in 1824. Sante Fe is so beautiful and it is so lovely. Other times I think how fascinating it would be to live when Felicity lived -- right at the very beginning of the American Revolution. I always wondered: "Would I be a brave person like Felicity? Would I join the Patriots? Would I be too frightened to do that?" What an exciting period of time to live in. Sometimes I think it would be fun to live in Samantha's time. There was so much happening for women. AK: Why did you put the "4"s? in the years of the books, such as 1774, 1944, 1904? VT: The answer is -- there is no reason. We knew we wanted to write about Molly, so we knew 1944 would be a good year for Molly, and we thought 1904 would be a good year for Samantha. Molly, Samantha and Kirsten were the first American Girl dolls, so we just put 1854 for Kirsten?s year. Not for any particular reason. Then 1774 turned out to be a great year for Felicity because that?s the beginning of the American Revolution. It was just lucky for us, actually that the year's ended in "4's". AK: Were the dolls and books intended for learning or for playing? VT: I came up with the phrase, "vitamins in the chocolate cake" meaning: the play and the learning would be intertwined. The doll would also allow you to know something about what the house, the clothes, the toys would look like. It would make education learning, and learning education. AK: How many books were planned before you wrote the first book? VT: I?m going to admit something to you: I didn't know there were going to be six books about each character. So I wrote the three books about Molly, and then I remember Pleasant calling and saying, "OK, it?s time to write three more books about Molly." And I thought, "I didn't know I was going to do that." So it came as a surprise to me that there were six books. I'm not sure that from the very beginning we planned on six books. I think we were waiting to see if girls liked the books. I didn't know there were going to be as many characters as there turned out to be either. I hadn't planned on writing the short stores, but I was so happy to do it. As you know, the more you write about a character, the more you have to say about a character. I didn't know that we were going to write about Felicity's friend, Elizabeth, Samantha's friend, Nellie, or Kit's friend, Ruthie, or Molly's friend, Emily, so it was so much fun to write about them. AK:How much time do you give yourself when you write each book? VT: I start out by doing research for long time. I do research for about a year and a half. Then when I begin to write the books, it's usually about three years from start to finish. My part of it, writing the stories really doesn't take as long as the art and illustration takes. They take quite a long time. I?ll send Meet Kit to the illustrator; then I'll write Kit Learns a Lesson. I won't even have the pictures back for Meet Kit before I'm ready to move on to the next story. Some characters took longer than others. Generally, from start to finish, it's about three years. AK:When it comes to courage, in which book would we find a piece of your life? VT: In terms of courage, I think all the girls face moments where they have to gather up their courage, don't they? Oh my gosh, you know what?s a scary moment? When Kit sees her father in the soup line and realizes that he has lost his job and doesn't even have enough money to buy food for them anymore. That takes a lot of courage to face a moment like that. In the Josephina books, she has to face a lot of moments where she has to gather her courage. Josephina is rather timid, actually, at the beginning of the book. She's afraid of snakes, and she's afraid of that terrible goat, Floracita, and she's afraid of thunder and lightening. And so she has to learn to gather her courage frequently. One thing I really like to do in the story is that I really feel as though when any of us is walking down the street, we have no idea how brave that person is being. You can't tell from the outside [how much] it takes courage for a person to do. Some people are perfectly happy getting up on a stage and singing and dancing. I could never do that. Sometimes it is hard for me to go to parties. Sometimes I feel too shy. People have no idea. From the outside we can't tell when people are being brave. We all face different challenges. AK:Do you have any more book plans for the future? VT: Yes. I've been thinking about a whole new kind of book that would have real famous people in it. Every famous woman was once a little girl and probably had a time in her life when she had to face some challenge and be brave. AK:What new book are you writing for American Girl? VT: I just finished writing "Really, Truly Ruthie" and I think it will be out at the big book expo in Los Angeles.