Literary Leading Ladies

On yesterday's vlog, I mentioned that I was preparing a post in honor of my grandmother.  This is that post; Nana, today is for you.  And, because I have no other graphic to go with this post, I give you a photo I took outside the V&A in London a few years ago, which seems appropriate:

Nana, by the way, reads my blog religiously and every so often offers constructive criticism and/or ideas for material she'd like to see here.  A few months ago, she suggested I write a post on why I revisit so many of the books I read as a child - I haven't quite figured out how to explain it yet; it has to do with nostalgia and, at the same time, discovering new things about both myself and the characters... I'll write that post when I can phrase it more eloquently, I promise!  But today I thought I'd give you a list of my ten favorite heroines in novels from my childhood and adolescence.

As I put together these names and dove back into the books for this post, I stumbled on articles online about strong girls and women in children's or young adult literature.  I recognized almost all of the names and, obviously, many of the them were repeated from list to list.  Interestingly, though, the ones that kept reappearing were ones that haven't stuck with me as viscerally as those below.  I read Pippi Longstocking and Harriet the Spy, I remember Mary Lennox and Sara Crewe, and I loved the Little House on the Prairie series as well as obviously To Kill a Mockingbird, but those girls just didn't become part of my soul in the way that the characters on my list did. For those of you who are a bit younger than I am, let me say that I read the first Harry Potter book when I was 12 and the last at 20, so while I love Hermione she didn't make such an impression on me as the girls in my list.  (The same goes for Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games trilogy, which came out after I'd finished grad school.)  And for you English readers, I will admit to never having read Enid Blyton or Edith Nesbit, which is why this list skews towards the American!  So here goes - in no order other than alphabetical by author because I can't pick favorites, here are my top ten literary leading ladies from books I read in childhood and adolescence:

Josephine March; Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Emma Woodhouse; Emma, Jane Austen

Rachel Robinson; Here's To You, Rachel Robinson, Judy Bloom

Meg Murray; The Time Quartet, Madeleine L'Engle

Vicky Austin; A Ring of Endless Light, Madeleine L'Engle

Angharad "Harry" Crewe; The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley

Rilla Blythe; Rilla of Ingleside from the Anne of Green Gables series, LM Montgomery

Jane Victoria Stuart; Jane of Lantern Hill, LM Montgomery

Keladry of Mindelan; Protector of the Small quartet, Tamora Pierce

Lyra; His Dark Materials quartet, Phillip Pullman

Okay, it's pretty obvious I went for fantasy stories.  Raise your hand if you did, too?  Yeah, that's what I thought.  I also seemed to like girls who did things that were, in the books, considered not feminine; Jo March moved to New York to pursue her dream of being a writer, Harry escaped diplomatic niceties to become a native of a foreign culture, Kel was the first woman in the land to openly train to be a knight, and both Jane and Lyra are described multiple times as tomboys.  These characters also tend towards normal girls with very relatable flaws who, over the course of the book(s), grow into themselves in one way or another.  I think that's why I actually like Rilla, Anne Shirley's daughter, better than I like Anne - the character development in that last book is wonderful and the background of World War I is a much more global setting than PEI is in the other books.  (Also, Tamora Pierce spoke at my school once, and I remember her saying that Alanna, from the first Tortall series, was both a female knight and a sorceress because she was so excited to be writing books that she went overboard and stuffed entirely too much into the character.)  My favorite leading ladies were also usually smart and bookish - Rachel Robinson is a straight-A student with a gift for music, Meg Murray is a math whiz who uses her intellect to resist losing free will, and Vicky Austin discusses philosophy and theology with her dying grandfather.  Of course, they also often had confusing family dynamics and awkward (at best) relationships with the opposite sex.  I guess you can tell a lot about who I thought I was and who I wanted to be from this list, can't you?

Do you think I've forgotten anyone, dear readers?  Who would you add?