j's scratchpad

No, I’m not kidding.

Nancy Pearl, a librarian at the Washington Center for the Book, is the model for this new action figure made by Accoutrements in Seattle.

Even though I resent the fact that the “action” is the doll raising her finger to her lips to “shush,” I still want one. Librarians may be near the bottom of the barrel career-wise because their horrid stereotype, but how many CEOs have been made into action figures?

Too bad they didn’t use one of my class mates who had jet black and flourescent pink hair, several facial piercings, and was totally punked out. The button on her back could make her design an awesome Web site.

The toy will be available later this summer at http://www.mcphee.com/, the Archie McPhee store.

Addendum 7/31: The Seattle Times published a piece about the controversial action of this toy. A school media specialist said, “If in fact … the idea is to focus on the importance of librarians and their powerful role in society, why choose negative stereotypes?” Another from Stoughton, Wisconsin, expressed a different perspective: “Just the fact that it exists and that it (a librarian) is being acknowledged as a role model is great.” She doesn’t find the shushing action harmful, adding, “You have to keep a sense of humor about this stuff.”

Addendum 8/20: Seeing an item in my referer log reminded me that it’s August and maybe the action figure is available now. It isn’t, but the Archie McPhee site has a really cool page about the toy. I signed up for their mailing list so I’ll know when it’s available.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 11th, 2003 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Action Figure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.