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.
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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.