Dressed in their high tea finest attire, seven girls brought their American Girl and other dolls to the William Hall library on Saturday for the annual tea party.

The party itself has been going on for the past four to five years, and for the past three years has been hosted by children’s librarian, Elise Petrarca.

Petrarca set up a craft table for the girls to make diaries for their dolls. They took pieces of paper and accordion folded them and decorated the covers.

“I was so excited to come here today. I’ve never been to an American Girl Doll tea party. I’ve only been to pretend ones that I make up at home,” said Celine Gautreaux, a third-grader at Arlington Elementary School.

The girls then went outside to play “Game of Graces.”

“These games are over 300 hundred years old, and were considered proper, acceptable games for young ladies to play,” said Petrarca.

Graces is played with two people. Each person is given two rods. Then, one of the players takes a wooden hoop and, pushing apart the two rods, makes the hoop fly in the air for the other player to try and catch it. The winner is the player who catches the hoop the most.

After they cleaned up, the girls were able to decorate cupcakes with frosting, sprinkles, Skittles and gummy worms. Petrarca also provided rainbow fruit skewers to enhance the high tea ambiance.

“I brought lemonade and iced tea, since it was so warm, I knew the girls wouldn’t want real hot tea,” Petrarca joked.

"The program always gets a good reception, I think the kids have a good time. I did have American Girl dolls when I was little, Felicity was my favorite," said Petrarca.

William Hall library owns two dolls - Addy and Rebecca, and they are available for patrons to borrow one week at a time.

For a complete listing of all programs provided by Cranston Public Libraries, go to www.cranstonlibrary.org.