Boyish girls and girlish boys in 20th century children's literature

[SaltPorridge]

George in "The Famous Five", Enid Blyton

Peter in Malcolm Saville's books set in Shropshire

Nancy and Peggy in Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome

Petrova in "Ballet Shoes", Noel Streatfield

Please add more/ discuss/ disagree etc.

NRTFT but boyish girls? Girls doing things that are not in line with harmful modern stereotypes are not boyish.

The GCSE Eng Lit syllabus is always dismally male- heavy.
I do wonder though the extent to which stories require action and adventure to drive a plot tends to favour male protagonists.
In real life, hand on heart, how adventurous and active are girls and women?
I liked Titty and Susan because they were coded girl, and were awesome sailors. I didn't like George in the Famous Five or Peter in Seven White Gates so much, because they wore boy names and boy clothes as if girls couldn't go exploring. (Sorry if i am repeating myself.)

Will in Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising series is also quiet and unassuming.

And musically gifted, while Barney has a talent for sketching.

And now we get men in football shirts and sliders. How far humanity has fallen!

I think Nina Bawden is underrated both in her children's and adults' writing. I didn't realise until relatively recently that there's a sequel to Carrie's War but focusing on Carrie's children. @GryffindorsSword & @SaltPorridge - I don't remember Albert being ill at all, so funny how memory plays tricks on you.

@EmpressaurusKitty - funnily enough I was thinking of Georgette Heyer earlier today in relation to this thread because of Leon/Leonie in 'These Old Shades' (a lovely favourite comfort read). But of course it's more that Leonie has grown up as a peasant child disguised as a boy that's presented as the reason for her behaviour as opposed to anything else.

Agree also about Tom in 'Tom's Midnight Garden'. Another Philippa Pearce boy is Ben in 'A Dog So Small'. He also lives largely in his imagination & dreams so not 'typically' boyish either.

I'm not sure if its still a thing, but films used to be called just "films" (or movies, if you prefer). Unless they featured women in the lead roles, in which case they were "women's films".

My favourite is Cotillion, but These Old Shades is high on the list!

I’m glad Heyer was writing back in the fifties - nowadays both Leonie & Pen Creed in The Corinthian would probably be declared nonbinary

Cotillion is wonderful :) The lovely Freddie, not at all the archetypal hero. Who thinks such heroes are 'dashed loose screws'.

Heyer's heroines are definitely not girly girls! I had no idea These Old Shades had a sequel until someone on another forum told me, and Mary in The Devil's Cub is a v good DIL for Leonie.

And gosh, have just discovered there's a third <adds to 'to read' list>

There’s a fourth. After Devil’s Cub there’s Regency Buck & An Infamous Army.

Blimey, I've read Regency Buck and had no idea it was connected to the same characters......

But he has address!

I too love Freddie.

Blimey, I've read Regency Buck and had no idea it was connected to the same characters......

I know, but An Infamous Army brings the Alistairs & the Audleys together!

I love Kitty!

I don’t think Heyer was concentrating when she wrote the first description of Fish, though. She goes from an elderly grey haired lady to one not much above 40 who might still have kids.

In the books, Frodo is carried by Aragorn after the attack at Weathertop, by Boromir after the cave troll attack, and by Faramir when he faints after saying they are going to Mordor. He’s also literally carried to the Cracks of Doom by Sam. You were saying?

Hmm, I see what you mean - but to a society hellbent on marrying off its teenagers, 40 probably was old, definitely granny territory.

At the camp below Weathertop he has just been pierced by a Morgul knife which nearly kills him, in Moria he has been crushed between a spear and a wall, and by the time Sam carries him he's been fighting a battle against the power of the ring for weeks (and that also applies to a lesser extent in Ithilien). So unmanly. I don't recognise your portrayal of Frodo, and I don't think it's unmanly to resist without fighting. Frodo's mercy towards Gollum when he could have killed him is crucial to the outcome, a morally courageous action which is both risky and turns out to be justified. The idea that men have to fight and have to have great physical strength is unhelpful to many men. And perhaps hobbits ...

Gosh, Paul Irving brings back memories.

I do think of my favourite Jo's - Bettany and March!

Elle mcnicoll has some great characters in her books that challenge pre existing stereotypes - cousins Ramya and Marley would perhaps have characteristics historically associated with the opposite sex!

Good point.

*Forgot about the 20th century bit for Elle McNicoll!

I think Tolkein was a Catholic convert, but not sure. He had weird ideas about sex e.g. his elves only have sex to have children - a very Catholic idea.

One of the pitfalls of reading this very favourite book of mine to my son, when he was about 8. I should just have let him read it to himself but I didn't think he'd bother if left to it! So of course you have to be really careful not to reveal Tyke's sex if you tend to discuss books as you're reading them. I do remember his classic double-take at the end, though!

I read Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet too young (and have never felt the urge to give it a second chance)…seem to remember the that applied to the Venusians too.

How about Fanny, the boisterous and irrepressible heroine of Penelope Lively's Fanny stories? Set in the mid-19th century. She hunts for fossils and arranges a pitched battle with another huge family of bloodthirsty children on a piece of contested wasteland! I loved pretty much all of Lively's novels, both for children and adults.

I'm really enjoying this thread and mentally stacking up a pile of classic children's literature to read or reread.

I think so. Lewis didn't marry till late in life, and it was a celibate marriage afaik.