Anyone who read this post, which I wrote very early on in the life of my blog, will know that I’m not a fan of Barbie. I think the shape of the dolly gives girls an unrealistic idea of perfection and I think that on the whole, Barbie is represented as vapid, unintelligent and overtly feminine. I know there are plenty of girlie girls out there, but what about the tomboys amongst us?

Sausage is on a Barbie-ban, we don’t allow any of the insipid pink crap in our house, but there comes a time in every little girls’ life when all she wants is a doll that she can dress up. Just recently, we were asked to review Moxie Girlz, a new dolly on the block which represents a whole new ethos for little girls. The Moxie Girlz message is:

“Every girl has the strength to do something amazing.
Anything is possible as long as you stay true to yourself
& never give up your dreams!”

Okay, so far so good, an improvement on “oooh, let’s go shopping and have a sleepover!” (Because that’s obviously all females want to do…).

The doll we were sent was Sophina (Amazon – £13.99), who’s part of the Moxie Girlz Horse Riding Club. She’s a pretty doll with nice hair and a huge head! One thing I was a little unsure about was the fact that she’s wearing a very short skirt, but she is wearing leggings underneath and riding boots.

The Moxie Girlz dolls seem well made and the clothes seem to be of a good quality. I was quite happy to see that Sophina wasn’t endowed (or burdened) with an enormous bosom or legs of an unrealistically long proportion. All in all, the Moxie Girlz seem to be geared towards a much more positive message regarding self-image, which is a great thing in this day and age.

Sophina is part of the Moxie Girls Horse Riding Club, which means that there are various complementary items which can be bought to go with her such as, obviously, a horse. Of course, I’d love to see ‘Rocket Scientist Avery’ or ‘Brain Surgeon Lexa’, but I also concede that little girls do like to just be little girls now and again and just indulge themselves with a little bit of hair doing or pretending to be a princess and for those occasions, Moxie Girlz really do seem to be the best way to go.

Sausage, as expected, is utterly mental about her Moxie Girl and is *hoping* that Santa will bring her Sophina’s horse, Cricket. We’ll just have to see about that one, won’t we!