Feisty books for girls

By Jude Rogers

This year, Judy Blume turned 70. That’s right: that Judy Blume, the taboo-busting writer who taught nervous girls all over Planet Pre-Pubescence about sex, divorce, bullying, racism and – paging the American Church! – menstruation and masturbation. God bless her (or perhaps you’d rather not, Oh Mr Big Man Upstairs).

Anyway: as we’d like to give thanks for her greatness at The Lipster, here she heads up our list of the greatest writers for girls of all time. And it's a list we'd like you to continue, so tell us your favourites below...

1. JUDY BLUME

Although lots us will have snuck under the covers to read Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret, Blubber and Deenie, Forever’s the book we all remember being passed around under the desks in school BECAUSE IT’S ALL ABOUT HAVING SEX (or as kids would say today: "it'sshaggininnitLOL"). Katherine and Michael plan protection and everything, mind, which makes it all seem rather tame despite its message being thoroughly brilliant.

Anyway: bonus points for Blume for telling girls about the pill and making us laugh when Michael called his cock “Ralph”. Oh, and she’s also had a successful grown-up book career, with Summer Sisters selling 3 million copies to date. Nice one, Judy.

Judy Blume profiled by Glamour Magazine

2. ENID BLYTON

Although some of her novels are very much of their time – The Three Golliwogs for instance, is mercifully out of print – loads of us loved the Famous Five for its gung-ho tomboy George (which Blyton talks about in the amazing clip below), The Secret Seven for Jack’s naughty sister Susie (who kept popping along to play tricks on the wannabe detectives), and the various eccentric boarders at Malory Towers (the big-mouthed Alicia, the brain box Irene, and the arty Belinda).

Blyton was one busy lady too: running a school in her 20s, divorcing in the middle of the second world war to marry the love of her life, and writing 800 books in 40 years. Some going, girl.

Enid Blyton on Women’s Hour in 1963

3. LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

The feisty Alcott wrote Little Women, a semi-autobiographical novel about four sisters, Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy, in 1868. Jo, based on the author herself, and was the star of the show: gobby, forthright and bold enough to refuse an offer of marriage despite being bombarded with letters urging to her to get hitched (she ended up marrying her own choice, hoorah). Alcott herself became an abolitionist and an early suffragette, and also outed herself brilliantly in an interview printed in the 1989 Penguin Edition of Little Women. “Why have I never married? Because I have fallen in love with so many pretty girls and never once the least bit with any man." Why didn’t you say that to the National Enquirer, eh, Jodie Foster?

American comic Meg Cabot performs Little Women – with dolls

4. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT

Manchester-born Burnett was the Ian Curtis of her time. Well, not really, but she was born in poverty and did write some brilliantly miserable things. The Little Princess was my personal favourite as young 'un. Written in 1905, it's the story of a rich girl who becomes a penniless orphan when her naughty business-meddler of a daddy dies. Which means that she has to learn, you know, the meaning of life, which, by happy coincidence, teaches the young girls reading about her how to be nice to everyone. Burnett also emigrated to America, married lots, and wrote the amazing The Secret Garden. How very rock and roll of her.

Shirley Temple as The Little Princess

5. FRANCINE PASCAL

OK, this one’s slightly cheating as I’ve only just found out that Francine Pascal was a pseudonym for a raft of anonymous writers, but hey-ho: this many-handed beast wrote the Sweet Valley High novels, and introduced the world and its sister to twins Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield (whose apple-pie essences were put in a poisonous test-tube to create Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen). And yes, Jessica was an uber-grinning cheerleading cow and some of the storylines were nigh-on-awful, but Elizabeth ruled: clever, sweet, funny and smart, she always seemed to triumph over her brattish little sis.

Oh, and the TV series was terrible, but at least the opening credits make you glad it’s not the ‘90s any more, which does all us growing women a service too. Hoorah.

The theme tune to the Sweet Valley High TV series

Nominate your favourite books for girls below. Rude bits welcome (especially the one from Forever, which we couldn't find on the internet). Thank you.

12 comments

RSS Feed

Stuart Evers 15 May at 01:52 PM

Rude bits for girls

India Knight edited a book of all the smutty bits from such classics as Forever and the Thorn Birds - called The Diry Bits for Girls (http://shortlink.co.uk/svo)

That should give you all the Ralph action you might need.

The one series of books I remember from early teens were the Virginia Andrews books - Flowers in the Attic in particular. All of them were about incest and abuse; all of them have sold millions of copies to teenagers.

Joanne Finney 15 May at 04:00 PM

out of body

I still titter wjen I meet anyone called Ralph - not that you do much nowadays...
My fav book as a teenager was Stranger with My Face - a spooky book about two twins who could do astral projection. It was by Lois Duncan who also wrote I Know What You Did Last Summer but this was much more chilling

Katy 15 May at 04:49 PM

Anastasia

Anastasia Krupnik (1979) was one of my childhood heroines and the star of a series of novels by Lois Lowry, depicting the title character's life as a girl "just trying to grow up".

Found some information on the books on Wikipedia: "The Anastasia Krupnik series is 29th on the American Library Association's "The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990–2000", for reasons such as references to beer and Playboy Magazine"

Maybe had more of an influence than I realised at the time.

Madeleine Fenner 15 May at 05:43 PM

Tamora Pierce

Feisty heroines, yes please!! Fantasy fiction rocked my world (still does!) and Tamora Pierce's awesome books had me wanting to be able to have the kind of adventures they did!!

15 May at 07:17 PM

Paula Danziger!

The Divorce Express, This Place Has No Atmosphere, Can You Sue Your Parents for Malpractice? All great for grumpy pre-teen girls.

15 May at 10:38 PM

Anne of Green Gables

LM Montgomery for the early Anne novels, and the not so well known The Blue Castle. I so wanted to be more outspoken like Anne. Not many rude bits! Except in the imagination.

Re Alcott, anyone read 'A Long Fatal Love Chase', I didn't realise until recently her potential for gothic.

Kathryn Hudson 16 May at 09:07 AM

A few forgotten gems

I liked the Ramona and Beezus books by Beverley Cleary who seems to have been a bit forgotten by history. Ramona was a very feisty four year old...

and what about the brilliant (and British) Gene Kemp. The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler is a classic modern British school story and is very cagey about Tyke's gener right until the final chapter so you are never quite sure if the character is a boy or a girl...

Susanna Forrest 16 May at 02:22 PM

Jinny Manders and Jill Crewe

from Patricia Leitch and Ruby Ferguson's pony book series. Jill actually makes me laugh more the older I get, and Jinny, well, Jinny got to ride Shantih. Which is probably the best thing that could happen to anyone.

18 May at 10:12 AM

Madeleine L'Engle

I loved A Wrinkle in Time - strong female heroine, incredibly imaginative story and a touch of fantasy for the geek in me.

Second the Lois Duncan mention - I was obsessed with Stranger with My Face.

21 May at 11:14 AM

Pre-teen kicks

Loved all of the standards listed above but the big news for me and my friends when we were 10/11 was the copy of 'Just like icecream' that appeared in our school library one day, informing us in all of our pre-adolescent innocence that sex was (of course) just like icecream.

Another of my favourites (although not really about a heroine) was Bridge to Terabithia, for the fiesty tomboy Leslie, who showed the boys a thing or two.

Rhiannon 22 May at 08:29 PM

Jaqueline Wilson

She's relatively new but hugely relevant.
Ursula Moray Williams for 'Bogwoppit'
Penelope Lively - My Darling Villain and One More River are both amazing.

Maddie 23 May at 01:14 PM

SVW et al

I have never seen the TV programme, (thank God by the look of it) so was giggling like crazy at the clip, thank you. I devoured these books in senior school, they were like chewing gum for the brain. Probably the teen equivalent of Mills & Boon. I loved how they always said the same things about the Spanish tiled kitchen, Todd's floppy brown hair, the mum retaining her slim figure, them maintaining their summer tans all year round. Hehehe. The one that always stuck in my mind was when Liz had to eat 2 helpings of pancakes for breakfast as Jessica was 'out the house' in mild peril! God they were awful.
On Judy Blume, she also wrote two cracking novels in the 70s called 'Smart Women' and 'Wifey', fairly slim by today's novels standards they are really astute, funny and still right on the money on female anxt. I love them, read them still even though my copies are moth-eaten and held together mostly by hope.
Never got into Enid Blyton, except the ‘Magic Faraway Tree’ stories, which I adored as a child. Still read 'Little Women' now, found the 'What Katie Did' series in a 2nd hand bookshop the other month and loved them all over again.
What do girls have to grow up with now? Jacqueline Wilson who churns books out like Barbara Cartland, while the far better writers Mallory Blackman for example barely get a look in. I used to work at Waterstone's running the children's section BTW