Seven-year-old Ellie Arenas knew she wanted Summer McKinny to be her new best friend as soon as she heard about her. Both girls love animals and baking and live in Columbia. The only difference Ellie saw between them was that Summer is an 18-inch doll and Ellie is a real, live second-grader.

Clothed in a rainbow dress with pink streaks in her hair, Summer is a 10-year-old dog-walker and treat-maker meant to embody an entrepreneurial spirit that has grown in the young people of her generation, according to American Girl, a subsidiary of Mattel that has sold millions of dolls, books and accessories since 1986. She was introduced as the company’s 2025 Girl of the Year recently, and Ellie couldn’t wait to bring her home.

Ellie got the doll as a Christmas present and has been planning to bring Summer with her to all her favorite places in Columbia, such as Blandair Park, her mother, Christine Porras, said.

“She’s from here, I’m from here. That’s so cool,” Porras recalled her daughter saying when she learned about this year’s doll.

Each year American Girl introduces a new “Girl of the Year” doll, complete with a background story and associated merchandise. Summer’s story was written by Clare Hutton, an author who grew up in Columbia. In an American Girl blog post called “Why Summer Matters,” Hutton explained the story she created in the hopes that young girls will learn from Summer.

“While Summer’s not perfect, she is willing to admit when she’s wrong, talk about her feelings, and do what it takes to get a friendship back on track,” Hutton says in the post. “I hope that girls will recognize their own relationships in the ones that Summer values and realize that they too can resolve conflicts just as she does.”

Porras said she was excited that Summer’s backstory is based in Columbia, “especially because this is supposed to be like a melting pot of different cultures, and it’s a planned community, and so it’s incredible that they picked Columbia.” But, she admits she was also somewhat disappointed with Summer at first.

She wished the doll’s ethnicity represented more people in the Columbia community, thinking back to her own childhood as the daughter of parents from South America, when she didn’t always see herself in dolls. She hoped it would be different for Ellie.

“I think in the past years, they’ve done a little bit more to like diversify the dolls that are coming out, like the yearly ones, but it’s never perfect,” Porras said. “And so I’m just happy that she’s from here and that there’s other attributes of the doll that kids can identify with.”

When Ellie received Summer, she said the doll looked like her and reminded her of herself, identifying with the doll even though there was no physical resemblance, Porras said.

‘It’s very exciting’

Curiosity about Summer’s life in Columbia also came to mind for Nychelle Hartley-Scott and her daughters. The Baltimore residents couldn’t believe Summer was from Columbia and wondered where she went to school or if places they knew were mentioned in her story, Hartley-Scott said. The 2014 Girl of the Year was from Washington, D.C., she said, but Summer is even more special since she’s the first doll from Maryland.

“It’s very exciting and it makes collecting worthwhile because it’s something that’s very relatable, something that they can relate to,” Hartley-Scott said. “They know where Columbia, Maryland is, and they can just imagine them as being her friend.”

Hartley-Scott and her daughters have been building their collection of American Girl dolls since 2018, managing to get every Girl of the Year since the first in 2001. Last March, she opened Doll Me Up Doll Shop in the Joppa Grand Market to help manage the size of their collection, selling items to other American Girl enthusiasts who often get excited to see all the retired items she stocks.

The speculation around the Girl of the Year doll each year is a rush that adds value beyond the doll’s monetary worth, Hartley-Scott said. It was a tradition to go to the American Girl store to get the new Girl of the Year with her daughter, whose birthday in January was around the doll’s annual release. Now the dolls are released in October, near her other daughter’s birthday, and they remain stocked for three years as new dolls come out.

“So, it’s just something that never gets old. It’s always fun to see what she’s going to like and what’s going to be her collection and what’s going to be the big item that’s going to come out with her,” Hartley-Scott said.

A Baltimore shoutout

Summer retails for $125, and comes with an outfit and accessories as well as a copy of the paperback book about her life in Columbia. Customers can purchase doll versions of Summer’s dog, Crescent, and cat, Fettuccine, as well as other accessories such as a treat stand and pet spa and daycare.

Helping to make Summer’s story as authentic as possible and promoting safety for young people who want to imitate the doll was important for Katie Flory and the Maryland SPCA. As community care and advocacy director for the Maryland SPCA, Flory advised American Girl on Summer’s story, reading over each draft.

As someone who always wanted to work with animals and found a career that stokes that passion, Flory said she saw a bit of her younger self in Summer. She was excited that Columbia was included, and was also happy Baltimore got a shoutout in the book, with a reference to Summer’s aunt who lives in Fells Point.

“We love our state. We love Baltimore,” Flory said. “We’re located in the Hampden area. So, anything that is going to connect Maryland with young people and animals is a win-win.”

Summer brings a sense of pride for many Marylanders. And for some, it may bring a new lesson on different aspects of representation in modern dolls.

“I think that for me, the big takeaway with Summer was that I think representation matters, but it matters in all aspects,” Porras said. “And I think sometimes that message is forgotten in the sense that, I think for me, it was like representation is like color of skin and eye color and hair. But representation for (Ellie) was where I live, where I’m from, and the other things didn’t matter to her. And so that was a lesson for me.”

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