Fewer princesses, more personality: who are the subversive heroines of books that kids love



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Long before the book Nina's Stories for Rebel Girls included fairy-tale princesses and replaced them with inspiring women like Ada Lovelace and Amelia Earhart, an idiosyncratic fictional heroine rebelled against badism in children's literature She captivated young readers around the world and showed that there was more than one way to be a girl.

With her red braids and freckles, she despised social conventions and had a personality to spare. She was independent and strong, so strong that she could raise a horse with one hand. She also owned a stock of gold coins. At the age of nine, she lived alone with her monkey and her horse, had sailed high and even danced with thieves.

Her name is Pippi Meialonga (or Pipi Longstocking, in the original title) and, to the extent that she reveals a fascinating new biography, her creator, the Swedish Astrid Lindgren, could be one of Nina's stars in Stories rebellious girls.

A teenage single mother, a staunch defender of women's and children's rights, she raised many flags, ranging from environmentalism to pacifism. This was not an easy or intended path for the daughter of a farmer raised in a religious and conservative community in the 1920s in Sweden. And yet, he became Lindgren's way, as Jens Andersen shows in Astrid Lindgren's book: The Woman Behind Pippi Meialonga

The little Astrid was a natural narrator and she inherited the gift of writing from his mother,

As a teenager, Astrid experiments with miscegenation and discovers jazz. At 17, she became a trainee in a local newspaper and at the age of 18, her 49-year-old boss, married and seven-year-old father, made her pregnant.

"The girls are so stupid, me, and he was there, so of course I found that exciting," she said later.

At the birth of her son she was forced to leave her in an adoptive family and, desperate, she tried to make a living in Stockholm as a stenographer and it was not until 1931 that she married that she

During the Second World War, Lindgren worked to censor mail for the neutral Swedish government … it was, she said, a "dirty" job, but in the optimistic view When his daughter (born in 1934) was bedridden with pneumonia, the author coined a counterpoint to the fascinating challenge against fascism.

Pippi is a subversive girl and full of pains. Lindgren has written many other books, scripts and essays.

Lindgren has written many other books, scripts and essays.

Lindgren has written many other books, scripts and essays. , appearing regularly in the media to eventually become a global brand. However, it is Pippi who makes her remember so far. Since the launch of the first part of the character's adventures in 1945, the book has never stopped appearing and remains internationally appreciated.

Children's literature is today very poor in female characters. ] Does anyone remember the video that the team of Nina Stories for Rebel Girls has published? With the title "If you have a girl, you must see this," he drew attention to badist prejudices by showing to a mother and her daughter removing from a library all the books no male characters (three), all books without

However, Pippi is not the only feminist icon of infant-juvenile fiction – she was not the first either.

Nearly half a century before Pippi, L. Frank Baum was carrying the newspaper he had published in Aberdeen, South Dakota, USA, to encourage American suffragettes, women are beaten for the right to vote. When he wrote his now clbadic tale, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, his heroine, Dorothy Gale, was shaped by her beliefs as well as her observations of pioneering women who lived in the great American plains.

As tornadoes and bad witches would have delighted Nancy Blackett! She is what used to be the tomboy (a girl who loves activities badociated with men). An intelligent sailor dressed in a shirt, a shorts and a pirate cap, she is also the daughter of a single mother, which may explain her talent for leadership and his ingenuity.

Nancy appears in 9 of the 12 novels that make up the series Swallows and Amazons, by Arthur Ransome. The character made readers of the 1930s understand that housewife life was not their only option.

She would probably hear with Petrova Fossil, one of Ballet Shoe's Noel Streatfeild heroines. Abandoned by her adoptive father and sisters Pauline and Posy, she discovers with the girls that a powerful and benevolent fraternity surrounds them. With the help of various women, they discover adventure and financial independence through ballet and acting, ie at least Pauline and Posy. ;

Ballet Shoes was Streatfeild's first novel and, about 80 years later, it remains popular – JK Rowling, author of Harry Potter, is one of the fans.

The Pippi Pioneer

Madeline, a daughter of Ludwig Bemelmans' books, knows how to make the most of a bad situation. Although she is still the target of Mrs. Clavel's accusations at the Paris boarding school where she lives, Madeline loves snow and ice, is not afraid of rats and releases a blow for the zebra's bright-edged tigers. Not even an unexpected operation of appendicitis hits the girl – and she then shows her scar with such pride that she becomes envious of her colleagues.

According to Bemelmans's grandson, Madeline was based on the author himself, who always felt like a strange. But Madeline's main strength is that she does not want to be a person who already belongs to an established group, but another one. In fact, in a group of 12 girls who spend their days as a synchronized swimming team, she stands out alone.

Virginia Lee Burton was born only two years after Astrid Lindgren, but her childhood could not have been more different. . Founded in a colony of Californian artists, she founded hers in Mbadachusetts, where she also wrote and illustrated several books, including Katy and Big Snow.

Her eponymous heroine is brave and determined. . She is "very tall and very strong and can do a lot of things". Katy is also a tractor that helps save the city from a blizzard.

And we are talking about a story that appeared in 1943, long before the locomotive Thomas, Thomas and his friends, addressed the issue of gender inequality in

Although the Lee Burton's two sons have been the target audience for all her stories, the brave machines that invade her pages are still female – there's also the Mary Anne steam bulldozer and the Maybelle cable car. Strong, indefatigable and independent, these female characters show younger readers that boys did not have the monopoly of strength and greatness.

But true equality also confers the right to make a character equally less impressive. This is what makes Louise Fitzhugh's heroine, in 1964, so interesting. Harriet, from The Little Spy, is sarcastic, nasty and thinks she can do anything. She is the anti-Nancy Drew (famous teenage detective of American literature), who prefers to dress in jeans and with a tool belt to wear sweaters and make others happy.

However, unlike many of the clbadic heroines who came before her, Harriet is not obliged to repent of her choices. Of course, there are more stories and gossip than research into the plot and she concludes that the book was crafted with delicacy, but also without flaws or remorse.

The real-life forces and achievements of women who have shaped our world are something that girls and boys should read and dream about. But fiction tells unique stories, and while there is always work to be done, if we turn the shelves, we will find more and more memorable heroines to inspire young readers of all tastes .

Existence of Persoangens such as Sally J. Freedman, Judy Blume, Matilda, Roald Dahl, Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson, and Rosie Revere by Andrea Beaty, thanks in large part Pippi and his pioneer friends.

in English on the BBC site Culture .


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