Summer Reading Featuring Heroic Females
Recently Scholastic came under fire for the apparent sexism in its book Girls Only! How to Survive Anything and the accompanying Boys Only edition. Sadly, according to these manuals, the “anythings” girls must be trained to survive are vastly different from what boys must be prepared to face. The girls’ “anythings” include the terrifyingly vacuous “Sudden Stardom” & “a Fashion Disaster.” Meanwhile the boys are being taught to live courageously with situations including “a Plane Crash” & “an Earthquake.”
The response was immediate and noisy. So clamorous in fact, Scholastic pulled the pair of books from publication and issued an apology. Why such an outcry? These books struck a nerve. Women are frustrated with the shortage of feminine heroic tales.
Research validates this felt need.
According to a study titled Where the Girls Aren’t, which analyzed gender roles in 100 G-rated movies, only 25% of the characters in the sample were female, and only 28% of the speaking characters were female. Because the best way for girls to find their voice is to listen to those who have found their own, this lack of feminine heroic models proves stifling.
According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center, only 3 percent of the top positions in mainstream media are held by women. If women aren’t in positions of media power, how can our voices be heard? How can our stories by authentically told?
The short answer is: they can’t.
When we become aware of how many stories we ingest that either demean the feminine characteristics of relatedness and nurturing and/or suggest that lofty aspirations aren’t ours to have — we begin to understand dreaming does require that we dare.
The good news is there are a handful of tales with female heroes, and they are increasing. In addition to the Psyche Myth which I discussed on this Hero Report podcast, in Dare, Dream, Do there is a list of books from which girls can gain inspiration, including titles like:
Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
The Country Bunny and The Little Gold Shoes by DuBose Hewyard
Secondhand Charm by Julie Berry
Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale
photo courtesy Laura Wilson
I’d also add:
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Legend by Marie Lu
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
For more stories starring strong female characters, see this recent post on The Atlantic Wire.
Who are your favorite female literary heroines?
Will you be reading a heroic tale this summer?
P.S. Click here for a great essay on the strong female characters in Harry Potter.
I loved biographies when I was a preteen–and I honestly hadn’t noticed until now that they were almost exclusively female biographies: Anne Sullivan, Hannah Senesh, even life histories of my grandmothers. Wish I could reach back into my 11-year-old brain and see what I was thinking as I read those books!
My absolute favorite is Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. I will read that one over and over to my girls. For little girls I also love ‘do princesses really kiss frogs’. Both are fantastic.
I would add Thorn from the “Bone” comic series. She’s wonderful – I can’t wait to read the books with my daughter.
Did you see “Brave”? I was quite disappointed with it. I admit that I had high expectations, but this film well short. Merida wasn’t the model I was hoping for.
Our family of girls highly recommends the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson. Max is a strong, fun, and engaging female lead character.
Absolutely without a doubt Hermione Granger. And I love a Wrinkle in Time – one of my very favorites. I’m going to write this list down and look each one up for my daughter. Thank you for addressing this vitally important topic.
When You Reach Me was on my list of top ten for a while. Many books you have mentioned are excellent. I also love The Hiding Place. STRONG women.
Whitney, a terrific and very important piece. My daughter has been an avid reader of Harry Potter and the Hunger Games. I will share these other titles with her.
There is a longitudinal study by Tufts that recently found that girls in 4H were 1.6 times more likely to pursue science and tech careers.
http://j.mp/OU9Bpm
My 14 year old daughter grew tired of always doing craft projects in girl-oriented groups and switched to 4H. Since 5th grade she has developed a P&L for each of her projects, made business decisions on feed and supply costs, learned animal biology, given her animals vaccine shots and medications, learned how to make persuasive presentations about her projects at UC Davis, and has learned leadership skills (she will be president of her club next year). 4H offers ‘city’ projects (chickens, bunnies, cavies, dogs, cats, making presentations, budgeting) as well as projects for farm animals at local school farms.
I am SO loving all of these suggestions… thank you dear friends.
I’ll add:
1) Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry
2) No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books by Alexander McCall Smith (great for teenage girls)
I am currently reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot – definitely a heroine story of sorts.
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