Letter Blocks

[#1]

I like to write historical novels about strong women who flout the status quo.  The reason is simple:  I grew up in the South in the early 1960s, where the deafening cultural message was that females were weak, witless creatures unable to fend for themselves.  Young women today will no doubt find it difficult to believe that, at the time, only four choices were available to females looking for a career:  homemaker, nurse, teacher, or secretary.  When I was eight, and proclaimed my desire to become a doctor or astronaut, my father attempted to explain why a woman was unfit for positions requiring brains and responsibility.

"It only makes sense," he said gently.  "A woman doesn't have the emotional strength or intelligence that a man does."  Fortunately, my father eventually came round to my point of view.

However, I might well have lied to myself and bought in to the stereotype, had it not been for two children's novels that proved women were capable of doing anything.

That same year - 1962 -- I came across a copy of THE ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS by Scott O'Dell.  Based on a true story, ISLAND is the tale of a young Native American girl, Karana, who lived on one of the islands off the coast of California.   Her happy existence is shattered when a boatload of Russians and Aleuts arrive and a battle breaks out.  Many tribe members are killed; the survivors decide to leave the island.  Karana gets on the boat with them - until she realizes that her little brother has been left behind.  She jumps overboard and swims back to the island.

Although she finds her brother, he is soon killed by a pack of wild dogs.  Karana uses her wits to protect, shelter and feed herself, as well as overcome the grief and loneliness that threaten to make her give up all hope.  She soon befriends the pack leader of the dogs, and together they not only survive, but also thrive on the island for eighteen years. Talk about emotional strength and intelligence.

The next year, I read A WRINKLE IN TIME, by Madeleine L'Engle. WRINKLE is the story of Meg Murry, an adolescent girl who overcomes her fear with love, and in so doing rescues her brother, father and the world from the dark forces of It.  I loved the book because Meg was just like me, right down to her geekitude, braces, and glasses. 

There are more wonderful books about girls and women I could name - the Trixie Belden series, for one (my favorite novel was one in which Trixie saves the life of her friend, Honey, who has been bitten by a copperhead) - but, in the interest of brevity, my point is this:

Novels are powerful things, and children's books shape young minds.  Thank you, Scott O'Dell and Madeleine L'Engle, and all writers of children's fiction.  You are changing lives - and thus, the world -- in ways you can't begin to imagine.

Editor's Note: Jeanne Kalogridis is the author of the soon to be released book, The Devil's Queen: A Novel of Catherine de Medici.

Message Edited by PaulH on 07-09-2009 08:18 AM