Pippi and Harriet

Pippi and Harriet

(feminist icons)

Always read the publisher page of your favorite books. You will find many interesting things. Beezus and Ramona, by the great Beverly Cleary, was first published the year I was born, 1955. When I read that date so much of my early life made perfect sense. My elder sister is the good daughter, dutiful and hardworking. I am the chaotic slacker. I am Ramona. My sister loved all Ms. Cleary’s books and the first volume of the Ramona chronicle was her very favorite. The old librarian in me just loves a publisher page.

In 1953, the heart of the button-down, commie-fearing Fifties, a harbinger of freedom came to this country from Sweden’s Viking shore. She came not with a sword but a horse and a monkey. With diamond blue eyes and red pigtails, Pippi Longstocking skipped into the hearts of legions of American girls. Her influence cannot be overestimated. In a period of rigid social conformity in the US, Pippi was a beacon of chaos, joy and pancakes for dinner. Here we find a nine year old girl, with her own house, no one to tell her what to do, unlimited funds and good friends next door. If you threaten her friends she will mess you up. But if you are ready for fun and maybe a good story, she is the best time imaginable.

Now, add 18 to 20 years to 1953 and you come to the Second Wave of American Feminism, with its nonsensical and perhaps koanic talk of women, men, fish and bicycles. That streak of nonsense, that ribbon of crazy fun, breaking expectations and freeing the mind to all possibilities, can be traced to Pippi Longstocking. Money, a home of your own, loving but absent parents, a horse and a monkey, what else could a girl need? Well, if you aren’t a magical child with superhuman strength, you might need to be of your world and not just in it.

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh was first published in 1964 and is a real breakout. Before Harriet, middle reader books were about perfect families and very small problems. (Ramona doesn’t deal with a problem as hairy as her father losing his job until 1977. This is no criticism of the great Ms Cleary, bless her ears and whiskers.) But Harriet wants to watch unseen and uninvolved. Her home life is not perfect, her working, distant parents want her to take more care of herself. Her beloved babysitter is looking at a life of her own. This a very early modern children’s novel, if not the first. It addresses four themes that have informed middle-reader literature for the last 45 years: school politics, family dynamics, change and self-knowledge. Seeing your own real life on the page is every inch as liberating as your own horse or monkey.

Every day I’m called on to suggest books. There is very good new stuff: The Sisters Grim, The Penderwicks, and the deeply wonderful Ivy and Bean are just a few of the new books and series out there for middle-reading girls. Even as we stand among all these riches, we must never forget the revolutionaries of children’s literature, Harriet, who shows us our real lives and Pippi, who lives the life we want.