So. Inspired by this article (which I blogged in response to here) , we discussed female characters in children’s literature. The good, the bad, the brilliant and our personal favourites. There’s a whole host of reading suggestions featuring some brilliant sounding heroines. It was really interesting to see that we tended to plump for heroines when naming our personal favourites – I was wondering whether people like Maleficent would get a mention, but they didn’t which is definitely something to think about!
Here’s the storify and here’s a link to the hashtag on Twitter.
See you at the next chat! 😀
Daisy May Johnson 
I definitely picked up some recommendations from that, thanks (I need to read Code Name Verity!) Also happy Noel Streatfeild was mentioned. I recently read The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale and in my review I paused when I had to describe the heroine, who’s very different from heroines I’ve encountered before. She isn’t strong, she isn’t witty, she isn’t particularly powerful (for most of the novel really she’s powerless). She is, however, superbly well-written and, I thought, very brave as she constantly faces her fears. The fact that I thought one of the secondary characters – Enna, who’s very witty and has charisma Ani doesn’t possess – almost outshone the heroine made me uncomfortable. Why do I value that more than bravery, kindness and intuition? That really had me think about what we value in female characters, or even in characters in general. Ani’s an unlikely heroine, but why is she so unlikely? Good food for thought.
Hi Ruby. Do! CNV is outstandingly good – and it’s one for me that grew on the second reading. Interested very much in what you say about The Goose Girl – I’ll have to pick that one up.
kudos for you for facilitating this – thanks indeed. 🙂 Hope you got some fudge!
Thank you Zoe! And thank you for the fudge inspiration 😉
What an excellent idea! I’m sorry I missed it and enjoyed reading back on the thread.
We’ll be doing another #kidbkgrp in three weeks or so – let me know if you’ve got any topic suggestions! 🙂