Summer McKinny
- "Summer" redirects here. For the doll, see Summer McKinny (doll).
Summer McKinny is the twenty-third Girl of the Year released by American Girl. She was released in September 2024 and represents 2025.
Facts and Personality
Summer is a ten-year old girl living in Columbia, Maryland. She was born on the first day of summer. She has blonde hair (like her mother) and blue eyes, and wears glasses like her father and aunt Olivia.
Her older sister Holly calls her "Vacation." Summer loves dogs and wishes to have more but only has the one, Crescent, who is a recent addition to the family. She gets the idea to be a dog walker, and while she starts out with two dogs--her own and a neighbor's dog--she overestimates her capabilities and takes on three soon after, struggling to handle them all during their walks.
Aunt Olivia calls their family a family of "makers and bakers. Her whole family likes to be creative in the kitchen. Every Friday the family has Family Fun Friday, where they all do a family event together.
Summer is passionate about what she does, but can overestimate her capabilities at her age; she thinks it's easy to have both a dog walking and dog-baking business, and after one walk with Crescent and Pixel (a smaller papillon dog), she immediately thinks she can walk three dogs alone. She's stubborn and doesn't often listen to people who try to give her advice or help; when Holly tried to advise her on a shorter dog-walking route or help her learn to knit, she rudely tells Holly it's none of her business and initially disregards her father's warnings that she's trying to take on too much work for one person. She also doesn't think to ask for help with things, believing that when something is her responsibility that she should do it alone; when she does ask for Holly's help, she pressures her to do so and then gets angry when Holly doesn't want to continue to help. Summer struggles to clean up after herself in the kitchen. She shifts blame when in trouble for her and Crescent; when Crescent chases Fettuccine and causes him to run off, she calls the cat a troublemaker rather than accept that Crescent was misbehaving, and says it's Holly's fault for not helping her walk dogs when Holly didn't want to (and resulted in Crescent being left alone in the backyard barking for hours).
Summer doesn't care for cats and doesn't consider herself a "cat" person. She is upset when Aunt Olivia adopts her cat, Fettuccine, and laments that her "favorite aunt" is a cat person, upset that Crescent is being "put out" of his own house. She mentally divides her and Holly into "Team Cat" and "Team Dog" and decides that Fettuccine is "ruining things" by being around. She escalates this to getting into a fight with Holly over her pointing out Summer doesn't give Fettuccine attention and even further when, after Fettuccine runs after being chased by Crescent, she calls him a "troublemaker" in front of Olivia, hurting her feelings. She also ignores Crescent's poor behavior to the detriment of Fettuccine; it takes her coming home to see Crescent coming into Olivia's bedroom barking and jumping at Fettuccine to realize that Crescent is the problem.
Summer's favorite food is tacos (specifically the ones with crunchy shells) and her favorite sweet treat is cupcakes. Her favorite color is rainbow. She enjoys riding her scooter, crafting, baking, and camp. Her favorite subject in school is science. She hopes to be her own boss someday, similar to her aunt Olivia.
Family and Friends
Family
- Mom: Mother.
- Dad: Father.
- Holly: Older sister.
- Aunt Olivia: Aunt.
- Crescent: Summer's pet dog.
- Fettuccine: Aunt Olivia's cat.
- Daphne: Summer's pet cat.
Friends
- Fiona: A college student who works at the Four Paws Animal shelter.
Books
- Face Mold: Nanea Mold
- Skin: Light
- Hair: Blonde
- Eyes: Blue
Collection
- See: Summer's Collection
See Also
Minor Characters in Summer's Stories
Trivia
- Summer is the third character to be marketed prominently with glasses, after Molly McIntire and Z Yang. (Z's promotional images rarely included her glasses.)
References
| Girls of the Year | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 2003 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | ||||||
| 2008 | 2009
Chrissa Maxwell |
2010 | 2011 | 2012 | ||||||
| 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | ||||||
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | ||||||
| 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | 2027 | ||||||