Not very terribly exciting photos today, but picture-taking is difficult with a sleepy dog who needed at least seven more hours before being even remotely ready to play in the snow.
I’ve been thinking lately about a lot of the books I liked when I was younger. I had a few favourite books, but the ones that I think about the most, years later, are the ones with some big adventure at the centre. I especially liked the ones that had girls in them – like Homecoming and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. (I wonder now how I would feel about the girls in these books, especially The Lion, etc.) It made me sad that, as I grew up, I found fewer books like these with female characters in them that I could relate to. And video games – even rarer. I still read the books, but always wondered why there wasn’t just even one girl there, drawing up the map, setting up the tent, doing the rescuing.
Do you know of any books or movies where girls or women go on adventures or journeys, navigate, make big decisions, even fight if they have to? It doesn’t even have to be a kid’s book (Oh, and I know about the His Dark Materials trilogy – I liked it!).
The Egypt Game was one of my favourite books as a child. I don’t remember much about the book now but I do know that I was completely engrossed in it. Makes me want to read the thing again. I do know that two girls were the main characters and it involved adventure!
Hmm. ‘The Deed of Paksenarrion’ trilogy by Elizabeth Moon (Sheepfarmer’s Daughter, Divided Alllegiance, and Oath of Gold) features a very strong female character – very capable of taking care of herself and does so. I quite enjoy those.
Edna Ferber and Willa Cather both wrote great stories about women in non-conventional roles – Ferber’s Emma McChesney stories are good examples of that, as is ‘Fanny Herself.’ Cather’s ‘My Antonia’ is a great novel, too…so is ‘O Pioneers!’
Surprisingly, I’ve been finding that Zane Grey novels often feature strong female leads. I mean, they do usually end up married by the end of the book, but for the period he was writing in, he’s downright feminist in his tendencies. ‘Wildfire’ and ‘Light of Western Stars’ are good examples. ‘Border Legion’ less so, but still vaguely feminist.
Oh, and Anne McCaffrey’s Pern novels. And Connie Willis’ ‘Blackout’ and ‘All Clear’ feature excellent female leads.
Hmmm…for the books all I can think of is the Garth Nix trilogy that starts with Sabriel. I’ve only read the first one and it’s pretty good. Magical stuff. And there’s the Inkheart series. There is also the Dragonlance Chronicles (Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Dragons of Winter Night, Dragons of Spring Dawning) that do have strong female characters. Been a long time since I read them, and there are a lot more male characters though.
I love that second picture of the footprints.
Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz were two of my favorites.
Thank you everybody! I’m happy that there are so many I haven’t heard of or read yet – it means the field is much wider than I thought!
Carla: I read one or two Dragonlance books in high school and remember enjoying them!
May I direct you to the Amelia Bloomer Project? It’s a list of YA books with strong female leads or characters. :)
http://ameliabloomer.wordpress.com/
Oh, neat – thank you!