Welcome, introductions, and here's a resource

[badgerbag]

Hello! Welcome!

Introduce yourself if you like in comments or a post.

As I went looking for interesting community icons I came across this great but U.S.-centric book list:

GIRLS SERIES BOOKS:
A CHECKLIST OF TITLES PUBLISHED 1840-1991




The chronological index is pretty neat! We could make polls for each time period.

Please feel free to post about whatever you'd like relating to reading girls' books.

Comments

[badgerbag]

Umm and I should introduce myself. I grew up reading my grandmother's books along with everything else. She had a fairly big collection of series books from the teens and twenties. So I read a lot of those and I still devour any new ones I come across. Add to this the similar stuff in between, like Trixie Belden, and a large amount of paperback books of the 70s and 80s. That's what I know best. I realized suddenly the other day that this is my fandom and I don't get to talk about it!

One thing that keeps me fascinated with kids' series books is that they have hugely obvious politics. They really hammer it home, whatever they are trying to get across, whether it's that girls must be sweet and take care of other people, or that farm girls must always pitch in to do the work yet they must still have neat clean hands and feet and be Ladies of Quality, or that Rational Dress and cold baths are best. They spell out a lot of rules of society, of class and race and ethnicity. When they're about girls who travel around, they become really weird fables of capitalist dominion over the world, and girls' and women's role in it, very clearly, which I think makes them easy to critique!

It's fabulous to trace the feminist didactics too, like how girls should have basketball teams, or learn Latin, or fix motorcars (The Motor Maids!). Best of all though, the girls in these books are surrounded by other girls and women, showing their strong friendships and families.

[al_zorra]

I loved /love 'girls' fiction, but I wasn't that fond of series, I'm afraid. Unless it was animals, like the Albert Payson Terhune Lad books or The Black Stallion books. I adored the two Bambi books. Almost all of those most loved books I own now, with the except of the series I did love, which was Lovelace Betsy books.

I'm hoping maybe someone can help me with the title and author of a book I did love and re-read constantly, set in later 19th century small town midwestern U.S. It was something like "Deskmates" or "Seatmates," and the Louisa May Alcott novels and a library played key roles in the book.

Love, C.

[badgerbag]

I have all the Betsy books in a recent reprint! And read the Lad and Bambi books too.

I remember best the Lad stories where he was unjustly suspected of injuring a toddler which he'd actually just rescued from a venomous snake, and the one where he's in a dog show contest where he has to follow instructions and navigate around a course and wins a huge trophy. The narration of Lad's confusion as the Mistress directs him around the course was very stressful and suspenseful! In retrospect I find I can't remember what country these books were set in. Were they in the U.S.? Clearly not Australia since the dogs didn't DIE.

[al_zorra]

Sunny Banks was in the New Jersey aristo land of Harvey, Jackie-O's fox hunting crew, making it most convenient for Manhattan dog shows and for the author's visits to his publishers like The Saturday Evening Post.

The Lad: A Dog gives us Lad's death, post a life of honor, filled with great deeds, devotion and triumphs. I wept EVERY time I read it, where ever I happened to be reading it. Lad, of course, was a knight, devoted to his lady, the Mistress.

Talk about class education.

Love, C.

[eeyorerin]

I'm Erin, and I grew up reading and re-reading oh so many girls series books-- the ones that stick out most for me right now are Louisa May Alcott (I had my grandmother's copies), Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, and Five Little Peppers, but I know as I keep looking through lists I'll say "Oh! I remember that one too!"

I'm currently reading Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Made Her by Melanie Rehak, which is an interesting account of the two Stratemeyer daughters who took over the Stratemeyer syndicate (which produced Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and the Bobbsey Twins, among others) as well as the woman responsible for writing many of the Nancy Drew books on behalf of the syndicate. If there's interest, I could post a review of it here when I'm done.

[badgerbag]

That sounds interesting - I would love to read your review!

Sometime I'd love to re-read an early Nancy Drew book and then a 70s or later re-write, to look at what was changed...

wow

[copracat]

What an amazing list! Does anyone know if there's a similar project for books published outside of the US? My google failed, possibly due to wrong search terms.

Re: wow

[badgerbag]

I don't know but I'll poke around for such lists tomorrow!

Re: wow

[copracat]

I found this site for The Abbey Girls, which includes links to Chalet School and Dimsie.