It started for me back in the third grade, with Astrid
Lindgren’s 1950 novel, Pippi Longstocking: I love spunky, tough, resourceful young women.
That’s one of the reasons I loved The
Hunger Games. But I have to say, Pippi could kick Katniss from District 13
to Villa Villekulla and back again. Could Katniss lift a horse? No. But Pippi
could do it with one hand.
We writer/librarian/teacher/reader types pride ourselves in
our literary broadmindedness. With tens of thousands (give or take) of new titles
being published every year, we like to think that we are living in a golden age
of Anything Goes. That is partly true…and partly not. Would Pippi Longstocking
be published today? I mean, other than as a self-published ebook?
Pippi owns a number of handguns, which she fires into the
ceiling for fun and gives them freely to her friends. She uses the kitchen floor
to roll out cookie dough, and eats raw eggs. She is impudent and disrespectful
to adults, and has no respect for any rules or laws. She physically attacks
policemen, and suffers no consequences for her actions. She has no math skills.
She is functionally illiterate, and has no interest in reading. She is a heavy
coffee drinker, and lives on (mostly) cookies and caramels.
Send a manuscript like that to Random House, and see how
fast they reject it.
Of course, many of today’s kids’ books contain elements that
would have made them unpublishable fifty years ago. LGBT characters, references
to certain body parts, and anti-government sentiments, for example. But let’s
not pat ourselves on the back for our “open-mindedness” just yet. The only
reason Pippi Longstocking is still in print is because she has been
grandmothered in as a “classic.”
Today, we require certain approved behaviors in our
heroines. Some of my own female characters have been criticized for being
bitchy (Sweetblood and The Big Crunch), unrepentant and
unpunished (How to Steal a Car),
physically violent (What Boys Really Want),
and dishonest (all of the above). It is true, and I hold Pippi Longstocking and
her ilk to blame.
Next up: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
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