One of the joyous things about having a goddaughter who reads almost as much as you do is getting to swap stories about what you're reading and why. At 13, B appreciates the importance of strong characters in her books, particularly strong female characters; as she says, it's all very well having a rollicking good story (she actually said "rollicking". I am so proud...) but what's the point if the characters are badly written and, worse, if all the female characters do is sit around simpering and waiting to be rescued? (Yeah, did I not mention she practically came out of the womb as a right-on deep-thinking feminist? She's already decided The Literary Character She Most Wants To Be is Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games trilogy, a choice I heartily approve of, and watches re-runs of Xena with an almost fanatical gleam in her eye - this, after all, is the girl who read the first Twilight book last year and dismissed Bella as "1950's Gone Wrong". What can I say, she's never going to be anyone's passive heroine...I feel very sorry for all the 13 year old boys she comes into contact with; she probably runs rings around them...)
But having such a literary (and feminist) goddaughter has been quite an eye-opener for me because it's made me think long and hard both about the books I either recommend to her or buy for her, and the books I used to read as a child/pre-teen. B often says to me "ooh, Auntie Kate, recommend me a book you used to read!" and it throws me; not because I can't think of anything (I read even more voraciously as a child than I do as an adult, which is saying something), but because I've started noticing a pattern in the books I've mentioned to her.
The books that stick in my mind the most from when I was a kid almost exclusively star female characters in a lead role.
Now I'm not saying that at the age of 3 I was marching around as a little mini-feminist and refusing to read books with boys in (although my mother will tell you I was born with an innate sense of justice and cried when I saw the starving children in Ethiopia at the age of about 2 1/2); far from it, in fact - I read a lot, and a lot of books with boys in were among my favourites. It just seems that the books which made the deepest impression on my young mind either had girls in the 'lead role' or as very well-developed ensemble characters; well-written, strong characters which stick in my mind to this day. They may not all embody the sort of "right-on" feminism of Katniss or the heroine in Neil Gaiman's utterly enchanting fairytale "The Sleeper and the Spindle" (seriously, if you have tweenage girls in your life, buy them this book. They will thank you for it one day), but they clearly made an impression on me and they are the ones I have, over the years, recommended to B.
So without further ado, here are the ten Literary Heroines who made an impression on me from an early age, in (roughly) the order I first encountered them.
1) Fancy Nancy (from "Fancy Nancy" by Ruth Craft)
I loved Fancy Nancy. I mean actually, properly loved her; so much so that from the age of 3 or 4 up until I started school, this was the one book I got out of the library every single week. I identified with Nancy: she was about the same age as me; she lived in a house with her mum and dad; she had a little brother who was known as Smelly Baby (hers was Thomas, mine Christopher)...it was as if we were destined to be friends. There was nothing particularly extraordinary about her adventures - buying mittens or getting sick - but there was such charm to them, and to Nancy herself with her love of all things sparkly and, well, 'fancy', that you couldn't help but fall in love with her. Long after I'd stopped reading "Fancy Nancy" I still thought fondly of her, so imagine my amazement - and delight - when on my graduation from university, my mother presented me with both "Fancy Nancy" and the sequel, "Fancy Nancy in Disguise", which I had never read! To this day it remains the best present I have ever received, and reading them still brings a big smile to my face. Of course Nancy herself would now be in her 30's, but I'd stake my life on her still being quirky and interesting. Kinda like me, actually...clearly she had even more of an impression than I thought!!
2) Katy Carr (from "What Katy Did" by Susan Coolidge)
For a book that was written in 1872, over a hundred years before I was born, Katy Carr certainly left an impression on me. I had a beautiful blue hardback edition, comprising "What Katy Did" and one of its sequels, "What Katy Did Next" - the book was a fifth birthday present to me from our next door neighbours, who knew what a little bookworm I was, and I adored it. Initially my excitement stemmed from the fact Katy had the same name as me, and that it was spelt the same way I spelled mine; once I started reading it, however, it was Katy Carr herself I came to love. Not that she was a particularly nice character, at least not all the time; she starts off as a wild tomboy forever leading her brothers and sisters astray and trying to govern her bad temper (I hear ya, sister...); then she disobeys poor harassed Aunt Izzie and swings too high on the swing in the woodshed, which breaks, leading to poor Katy becoming An Invalid after she damages her spine. She has to stay in bed and is so utterly miserable you can feel her despair; this, after all, was way before medical science had advanced to understand the treatment of spinal injuries. When drippy, unbearably 'good' Cousin Helen comes to stay, who is also an invalid in a wheelchair (two invalids for the price of one! What joy!!) Katy starts to realise life isn't all doom and gloom and turns her life around, becoming frustratingly drippy herself in the process. She definitely becomes kinder, but loses something of her spark; clearly Katy Carr is no modern feminist icon but, in her early tomboy years and through her painfully-yet-beautifully written attempts to conquer her temper and "be good", she was without doubt my kind of girl.
3) Heidi (from "Heidi" by Johanna Spyri)
More invalids!! Seriously, what was with all the invalids in those days...Written in 1880, "Heidi" has been a beloved children's classic almost from the moment it was published, and I was no exception. Heidi always endeared herself to me; she was an incredibly self-possessed little girl, and who wouldn't want that idyllic life running around the Alps with Peter and the goats? Heidi is smart as paint and incredibly loving; she also had a deeply-close bond with her grandfather, which was something I related to wholeheartedly. She was also a reader, once she was taught by poor invalid Klara's grandmother, and that was something else I related to. Plus I look wicked-cute in a dirndl. Just sayin'...
4) Mildred Hubble (from "The Worst Witch" books by Jill Murphy)
Oh Mildred Hubble, how I adored thee. I will not hear a bad word said about her. Ever. Ok, so she may not be the brightest and best of the students at Miss Cackle's Academy, but she's the one who saves the day in the end thanks to her initiative and that makes her all right by me. Plus she was totally devoted to her equally-inept cat, Tabby; given that at the time I had two fairly useless specimens who I was nevertheless besotted with, I felt her pain. Hermione Granger may have come along to steal her thunder at a later date, what with all her smarts and proto-feminist shiz, but Mildred Hubble was infinitely more lovable and just as capable of saving the whole school from disaster - Worst Witch, I salute you!!
5) Ramona Quimby (from the "Ramona" books by Beverly Cleary)
Ramona Q was the girl I wanted to be when I was her age. Fearless, funny and just like every other five-to-eight year old kid on the planet, Ramona tries so very hard to be good yet always seems to end up in a pickle. I adored her. When Ramona started kindergarten (in "Ramona the Pest") I was starting in my Reception year at school; although Ramona was an American created in the 1950's she resonated incredibly clearly with me. Just as Ramona struggled with having to sit still in class and learning to do handwriting, so did I, and there is something so incredibly human about her, which stems from Beverly Cleary's amazing writing. I read all the books from "Ramona the Pest" through to "Ramona Quimby Age 8" and it was like having someone who knew exactly what I was going through without me even having to say it, or even really understanding what I was feeling. Plus she was funny. I mean really, really funny. When I read Ramona to B, she laughed so hard she almost gave herself a nosebleed. I count that as a success!!
6) Georgina "George" Kirrin (from the "Famous Five" books by Enid Blyton)
Tomboyish, headstrong, hot-tempered, loyal, courageous George. She was easily the best character in the "Famous Five" books (well, apart from Timmy the dog, obviously, but that goes without saying) and there was something about her which tugged at my heart and fired my imagination. Although I was something of a tomboy as a child it was never to the extremes George took it to, and I was certainly never as brave as she was; perhaps, deep down, she represented things I wished I was brave enough to be. Enid Blyton's books certainly have their faults, and they are very much 'of their time', but whereas Anne was the drippy housewife-in-training of the Five, and Julian and Dick were smug and fairly boring (Julian more so; god, I wanted to smack him) it was the lonely, fierce, lovable George I adored. I wept when she was sad, I cheered when she saved the day (which was often), and I laughed when she did something which drove the various adults in the books to distraction. I have no truck with all these latter-day, retrospective analyses of the books which claim George had gender dysphoria and what-have-you; first of all Enid Blyton wouldn't have known what the hell that was, given that she was writing in the 40's and 50's; secondly, George was just George, and she never pretended to be anything other than who and what she was. Bless you, George; you were a lifeline when I was laid up with my leg in plaster, and living vicariously through your adventures kept me sane.
7) Darrell Rivers (from the "Malory Towers" books) / Pat and Isabel O'Sullivan (from the "St Claire's" books; both by Enid Blyton)
Ok, so neither of these would ever win prizes for anything other than "Depiction of 40's/50's Upper-Middle-Class Smugness" - certainly not anything particularly feminist - but I was obsessed with these books as a child. I loved the different girls in the schools, particularly wild Carlotta at St Claire's and sharp-tongued, uber-smart Alicia at Malory Towers, and reading about their adventures instilled in me a buning desire to go to boarding school. Imagine my disappointment when I found out it wasn't all midnight feasts and practical jokes...Of course books set in an all-girls boarding school were bound to appeal to little girls looking for female characters, but their adventures were inspiring and I loved reading about them. The fact I was also obsessed with Enid Blyton's "Circus" series and was convinced that St Claire's ex-circus girl Carlotta was the very same Lotta from that series was no coincidence; I never went to boarding school or ran away to join the circus but, thanks to these books, I sort of feel like I did. In a very 1940's kind of way...
8) Nancy Drew (from the "Nancy Drew" books by 'Carolyn Keene')
Ohhh, Nancy Drew. The smartest girl detective there ever was. Ok, so she was attractive and wealthy, (and it weren't for the fact that 'Carolyn Keene' was a pseudonym for a succession of ghostwriters you might be tempted to suggest Nancy was something of a Mary Sue since she was apparently so utterly brilliant at absolutely everything she did), but she had brains and by golly she wasn't afraid to use 'em. You need some sleuthing done, Nancy Drew is your girl. Once they introduced the character of Ned Nickerson there was a slight shift in that sometime he had to "save" Nancy from something (although she just as regularly "saved" him), and there have been plenty of critics over the years who contend Nancy was nothing more than a privileged white girl who never had to work a day in her life and stuck her nose into other people's business when really she should have just called the police and butted out, but those people are cynics who have no soul. As a nine year old I was enchanted with Nancy Drew: she could just run off and solve mysteries whenever she felt like it; she was super-smart and energetic; and, most importantly, she was free-spirited, helping other people because she could, because she wanted to and because it was the right thing to do. The cynics may try to run her down but Nancy will keep right on going, and that's the way it should be. Hold on, Nancy, I'm just grabbing my magnifying glass...
9) Jo March (from "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott)
For a girl looking for a female-centric book, you can't go wrong with "Little Women". Oh sure, Mr March is mentioned, and the girls get up to plenty of scrapes with neighbour Laurie and his tutor Mr Brooke, but the book is actually the story of the four March Girls and the insoluble bonds of sisterhood. Oh sure, it flies in the face of feminism, what with Meg being Little Miss Goody-Goody who wants to be the perfect wife and mother, and Amy flitting around being looks-obsessed, and Beth who just, well, dies; the whole "self-sacrifice" theme of the book is enough to make any modern woman want to stick pins in her eyes before slapping some sense into the Marches by yelling "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU LOT?!!" but the entire book is redeemed in my eyes by the pure Literary Heroine Perfection that is Jo March. Jo is not a goody-goody by any stretch of the imagination, and her hot temper lands her in trouble a lot, but she cares greatly for her family and is their staunchest defender. The scene where she sells her hair to raise money to keep the family afloat sends shivers down my spine to this day; family is everything to Jo, something I identify with very strongly, and she never shies away from that. Plus, of course, Jo is a writer, so from an early age I identified with that as well. You can keep your consumptives and your drippy good girls; Jo is the March sister I want to be when I grow up...
10) Sally J Freedman (from "Starring Sally J Freedman as Herself" by The Incomparable Judy Blume
Ok, so first off a disclaimer: I adore Judy Blume. She and the Equally Incomparable Jacqueline Wilson were the Literary Soundtrack of my pre-teen years; I have never known any other authors who seemed to be able to describe in almost exact detail just what was going on in my head. (Whoever bought me Jacqueline Wilson's "The Suitcase Kid" should be sainted; that book helped me cope with and understand my parents divorce better than any 'conversation with a grown up' could). That being said, it's the irrepressible Sally who makes my list of Literary Heroines; she is endlessly inventive with a wonderful imagination, and I absolutely adored her. Plus she makes the list for the use of the phrase "love and other indoor sports", which I use to this day. Thanks, Sally...
I have recommended/read all of these to B over the years; some she enjoyed, some she didn't ("Little Women" didn't quite cut it because apparently not even the 'awesome' Jo could cut through the 'drippiness' of the rest of it), but it's certainly been interesting seeing how characters which had such a strong impact on me have affected her. It's also been interesting seeing the strong female characters she likes - Katniss, for example, who I think is a brilliant role model for girls if you leave out the 'having to kill people' bit - and the impact they've had on her. I just hope all the amazing writers out there carry on creating such brilliant books for kids with these strong characters; they often have more of an impact on children and young people than you'd think, and if it makes them want to read then that's a really, really good thing...
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