Links to outside content
Sep. 6th, 2011 01:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sub_dividedI left a couple of long comments to this post by rachelmanija, about children's novel protagonists I could identify with growing up. Most of the commenters said they couldn't find themselves in YA novels, but I think I was pretty well represented in the fiction I read, actually.
Here's the text of my comments, edited a little bit:
Actually, yes. I felt like I saw myself in a lot of the books I read as a child. Probably this is because my grandma was a children's librarian and she was always sending us books she thought we'd like.
I identified mostly as a smart girl with liberal parents who'd negotiate with you, who lived in a lower socioeconomic class neighborhood with kids who didn't understand that parenting style. I loved this book called The Treasures of Witch Hat Mountain, about a girl whose father was a university professor at a small liberal arts school, but they live in the mountain backcountry. I also liked The Missing Gator of Gumbo Limbo, an eco-mystery with a girl protagonist, as well as the Babysitter's Club mystery novels. I identified with Claudia because she was spacey (with a learning disorder) but from an intellectual family; and I liked Dawn because she was a hippie with hippie parents, who was into mystery stuff. I always thought it was deeply unfair that Dawn and Claudia weren't best friends, especially because I couldn't stand Mary Ann (Stacey was okay, apart from being boy-crazy).
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was a nearly perfect book - I even looked like the girl who played Claudia in the movie. Also, I didn't read this as a child, but Katy in What Katy Did is a lot like me. I was always doing rash stuff as a child.
There was a particular genre of girls-with-no-siblings-or-younger-siblings-who-are-left-on-their-own-over-summer-break-and-discover-magical-things that I was really into. I also read a lot of Asian-American YA books, because I identified really strongly with being from another culture where academic success is valued.
Some other books... Sylvia Engdahl's Enchantress Amoung the Stars has a girl playing anthropologist among the natives of a primitive world. And she has telepathy, too!! I liked Princess Ivy from Piers Anthony's Xanth series. More ADD in that book. Nita from Diana Duane's So You Want to Be a Wizard series was bookish and into language like me, though I identified more with computer genius and promising but imperious young talent Darine (who is insufferable even if you *do* identify with her). Vivian Vande Velde always had girls in romances with inhuman things, which I identified with since I wasn't into "normal" romance. Tanya Huff, ditto, also Mercedes Lackey had that Tarma and Kethry series (the Oath books), wherein I was strongly identified with Kethry. Of course, she and Tarma should have gotten together!
By the time I was really seriously ready to read about same-sex stuff, we had a personal computer at our house, and I read Ranma 1/2 fanfiction.
Ways I wasn't able to see myself in books in the next comment:
Looking back, there must have been a slight lack in books I could really strongly identify with, because I'd read the ones I did have over and over. In general, here were some gaps:
1. In heroic fiction, like say Patricia Wrede's Dragons series, the protagonist is usually quite organized and level-headed. I saw myself more in the hapless sidekick characters, like Alianora. Sort of the same way that Emma reflects me better than the typical Jane Austen heroine.
2. I read a ton of Holocaust books (gifted by my grandma), but don't I remember reading any non-issue books with a strong identifiable Jewish main character (who was female). The WWII book I most strongly identified was actually not about the Jewish experience at all (Stepping on the Cracks, by Mary Downing Hahn).
3. Not enough science fiction books with female protagonists! Note that I don't mean space opera here - I understand Bujord has Cordelia's Honor and there's an Honor Harrington series - but science fiction books primarily about ideas, like the kind you'd find in William Sleator or Bruce Coville books. Then again, there's a lack of about-ideas sci fi books for children in general.
4. Not very many outright lesbian stories, but as mentioned above, lots of children's books have strong ambiguous female friendships.
I'm female, white, American, middle class, love books, and was a social outcast growing up. Since probably the majority of authors who write YA novels fall into one or all of those categories, it'd be surprising if I couldn't find - not exactly myself, but characters I could identify with - in YA books.
And here's a comment about my highschool I left over at hoodedutilitarian.com. Okay, that's enough about me, now let's talk about something else XD.
Wait, one more thing about me: my flight to England leaves the 30th of September! I'll have just about two weeks free before classes start. European peeps, any of you guys want to meet up?
rachelmanija, about children's novel protagonists I could identify with growing up. Most of the commenters said they couldn't find themselves in YA novels, but I think I was pretty well represented in the fiction I read, actually. Here's the text of my comments, edited a little bit:
Actually, yes. I felt like I saw myself in a lot of the books I read as a child. Probably this is because my grandma was a children's librarian and she was always sending us books she thought we'd like.
I identified mostly as a smart girl with liberal parents who'd negotiate with you, who lived in a lower socioeconomic class neighborhood with kids who didn't understand that parenting style. I loved this book called The Treasures of Witch Hat Mountain, about a girl whose father was a university professor at a small liberal arts school, but they live in the mountain backcountry. I also liked The Missing Gator of Gumbo Limbo, an eco-mystery with a girl protagonist, as well as the Babysitter's Club mystery novels. I identified with Claudia because she was spacey (with a learning disorder) but from an intellectual family; and I liked Dawn because she was a hippie with hippie parents, who was into mystery stuff. I always thought it was deeply unfair that Dawn and Claudia weren't best friends, especially because I couldn't stand Mary Ann (Stacey was okay, apart from being boy-crazy).
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was a nearly perfect book - I even looked like the girl who played Claudia in the movie. Also, I didn't read this as a child, but Katy in What Katy Did is a lot like me. I was always doing rash stuff as a child.
There was a particular genre of girls-with-no-siblings-or-younger-siblings-who-are-left-on-their-own-over-summer-break-and-discover-magical-things that I was really into. I also read a lot of Asian-American YA books, because I identified really strongly with being from another culture where academic success is valued.
Some other books... Sylvia Engdahl's Enchantress Amoung the Stars has a girl playing anthropologist among the natives of a primitive world. And she has telepathy, too!! I liked Princess Ivy from Piers Anthony's Xanth series. More ADD in that book. Nita from Diana Duane's So You Want to Be a Wizard series was bookish and into language like me, though I identified more with computer genius and promising but imperious young talent Darine (who is insufferable even if you *do* identify with her). Vivian Vande Velde always had girls in romances with inhuman things, which I identified with since I wasn't into "normal" romance. Tanya Huff, ditto, also Mercedes Lackey had that Tarma and Kethry series (the Oath books), wherein I was strongly identified with Kethry. Of course, she and Tarma should have gotten together!
By the time I was really seriously ready to read about same-sex stuff, we had a personal computer at our house, and I read Ranma 1/2 fanfiction.
Ways I wasn't able to see myself in books in the next comment:
Looking back, there must have been a slight lack in books I could really strongly identify with, because I'd read the ones I did have over and over. In general, here were some gaps:
1. In heroic fiction, like say Patricia Wrede's Dragons series, the protagonist is usually quite organized and level-headed. I saw myself more in the hapless sidekick characters, like Alianora. Sort of the same way that Emma reflects me better than the typical Jane Austen heroine.
2. I read a ton of Holocaust books (gifted by my grandma), but don't I remember reading any non-issue books with a strong identifiable Jewish main character (who was female). The WWII book I most strongly identified was actually not about the Jewish experience at all (Stepping on the Cracks, by Mary Downing Hahn).
3. Not enough science fiction books with female protagonists! Note that I don't mean space opera here - I understand Bujord has Cordelia's Honor and there's an Honor Harrington series - but science fiction books primarily about ideas, like the kind you'd find in William Sleator or Bruce Coville books. Then again, there's a lack of about-ideas sci fi books for children in general.
4. Not very many outright lesbian stories, but as mentioned above, lots of children's books have strong ambiguous female friendships.
I'm female, white, American, middle class, love books, and was a social outcast growing up. Since probably the majority of authors who write YA novels fall into one or all of those categories, it'd be surprising if I couldn't find - not exactly myself, but characters I could identify with - in YA books.
And here's a comment about my highschool I left over at hoodedutilitarian.com. Okay, that's enough about me, now let's talk about something else XD.
Wait, one more thing about me: my flight to England leaves the 30th of September! I'll have just about two weeks free before classes start. European peeps, any of you guys want to meet up?