• The New York Times, Monday, November 12, 2007 1:01 PM

Bella Sara trading cards have pastel colors, fanciful pictures of unicorns and virtual horses to groom, along with girl-power sayings like "Use your love to bring peace to the world." Peter D. Adkison, who introduced America to Magic: The Gathering and Pokémon trading cards, hopes they will convert 6- to 12-year girls to the world of card collecting.

Adkison founded Wizards of the Coast, a game-publishing company that not only made Pokémon a household name, but enabled him to acquire Dungeons & Dragons. After selling the company to Hasbro for nearly $500 million in 1999, he bought Gen Con, which runs a game convention, from Hasbro. Then he started Hidden City Games, which owns the worldwide rights to Bella Sara outside Scandinavia, where it originated.

Gitte Odder Braendgaard--a Danish social worker who had worked with emotionally disturbed children--designed Bella Sara to be prettier and gentler, and without a competitive component. The resulting product looks something like a combination of the My Little Pony characters, with its dainty toy horses, and Webkinz, the line of stuffed animals linked to online worlds.

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