Anne Shirley and other Strong Women

I am huge fan of the Anne of Green Gables books, and reread the series every year growing up. My favorite of the novels, Anne of the Island, is about Anne in college.

Yes, it’s more than a little inspirational for my own work.

This year is the hundredth anniversary of the Anne books, and celebrations are happening everywhere. There are “Anne” musicals and “Anne” parties, and “Anne articles every time you turn around. There are discussions about why Anne Shirley is not held up like Huck Finn (even though Mark Twain was also a fan of the Canadian proto-feminist) and NPR shows that pick Anne of Green Gables as their book of the month. There’s even an authorized Anne prequel coming out.

I am a fan of all of this. What I am not a fan of is the recent Newsweek article claiming that she’s the last interesting female character in children’s literature.

It’s rare to find a best seller with a strong heroine anymore, in large part because, although girls will read books about boys, boys won’t go near a girl’s book, no matter how cool she is. Even in Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series, the strong, grounded Bella is willing to chuck it all for the love of her vampire boyfriend. “The literary smart girl is still showing up in literature, but she’s often the sidekick,” says Trinna Frever, an “Anne of Green Gables” scholar. “It is a reflection of a culture that’s placing less value on intelligence, and also treating intelligence as a stigmatized quality.”

Wow, really? I wonder how many YA novels the author or Frever have read? You know, other than Twilight. Have they gone near bestselling trilogies like Scott Westerfeld’s UGLIES books, which are not only beloved by both boys and girls, but also features a heroine so strong she single-handedly brings down her dystopian government? Or what about Libba Bray’s Gemma Doyle trilogy, in which Gemma fights a patriarchal conspiracy while railing against the restrictions of Victorian England? How about the NYT bestselling I’d Tell You I Love You But Then I’d Have To Kill You and it’s similarly long-titled sequel, a series by Ally Carter about a school for genius girls training to be spies? That’s right, a whole SCHOOL of genius girls.

New York Times bestsellers all.

How about the novels of Maureen Johnson, Meg Cabot, E Lockhart, Jenny O’Connell? The list goes on and on.

I’ve written three books about a smart twenty-something girl fighting the patriarchy at an Ivy League college and next summer, I’ve got a book coming out about a smart teenage girl hunting unicorns. I have gleefully managed to avoid most YA novels that feature “weak” women, and think that strong female role models are out there in spades for anyone who cares to look.

Speaking of strong women, I really enjoyed this Salon article/love letter to the character of Dana Scully.

In this summer of Dark Knights and Hellboys and Iron Men, it’s refreshing to be reminded — as we will be this weekend, with the opening of “The-X-Files: I Want to Believe” — that not so long ago, there was a science fiction series with a woman at its core, a heroine whose major goals were more about disproving the existence of extraterrestrial life than marrying Big, a chick who spent more time chasing fluke worms down toilets than trying on shoes.

Like the writer of this article, I was similarly enthralled with The X-Files in its heyday (and have been diligently avoiding it ever since so as not to taint my memory). The skeptical Doctor Scully and her level-headed approach to life is very similar to my practical, science-minded Astrid.

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In other news, the winner of the RUMORS contest is Amy W. My mouth dropped open when I read that rumor.