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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stump Mom Never told you?

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Speaker 1: From House top Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Christen. This is Molly. Molly. We've got

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Speaker 1: to start off this podcast episode with a shout out

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Speaker 1: to some very cool fans of ours we met recently. True,

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Speaker 1: we met Lindsay and Doug who are in Atlanta, our

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Speaker 1: hometown right now, performing in the production of looking Glass Alice,

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Speaker 1: which is based in Chicago, and we went to see

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Speaker 1: it and it was awesome. Yes, we both absolutely adorned it. Yes,

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Speaker 1: Lindsay and Doug incredibly talented folks and we were very

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Speaker 1: excited to get to see them perform. And looking Glass Alice,

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Speaker 1: as you might guess, is loosely based on Alice in Wonderland.

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Speaker 1: And Molly and I ran across a really interesting article

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Speaker 1: in Smithsonian Magazine discussing Louis Carroll in his relationship to

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Speaker 1: the real life Alice. And by Louis Carroll, I do

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Speaker 1: mean the real life Reverend Charles Ludwidge Dodgson. Yes, that's right, Christen,

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Speaker 1: but for for sake of easiness, let's just call him

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Speaker 1: Louis Carroll for the rest of this brief discussion of him,

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Speaker 1: because because Reverend Charles Ludwige Dodge hard to say a lot. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So in eighteen sixty five, Kristen, as you know, Alice's

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Speaker 1: Adventures in Wonderland was published, an immediate hit. Um Lewis

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Speaker 1: Carroll was pretty well known in a lifetime as being,

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Speaker 1: you know, this Victorian bachelor who wrote this book. He

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Speaker 1: had great relationships with children. Uh. In nineteen thirty two

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Speaker 1: he was honored by Columbia University. The real Alice Ladell,

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Speaker 1: who he made up the story for, traveled to New

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Speaker 1: York City to get the award. She was honored for

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Speaker 1: awaking with her girlhood's charm, the ingenious fancy of a

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Speaker 1: mathematician familiar with imaginary quantity, stirring him to feel his

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Speaker 1: complete understanding of the heart of a child. And I

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Speaker 1: think that's a really you know, well put way of

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Speaker 1: why people still love Alice in Wonderland, because it is

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Speaker 1: this heart of a child going through this weird, funky

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Speaker 1: world that nothing seems quite right. But I mean nothing

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Speaker 1: seems quite right when you are that age, I think,

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Speaker 1: and not only is it an enduring book for children,

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Speaker 1: but it's also something that adults read as well and enjoy.

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Speaker 1: Um But there's also this darker side to Lewis Carroll

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Speaker 1: and his relationship with Alice, because as this article in

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Speaker 1: Smithsonian explains, and many other scholars have gone back and

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Speaker 1: looked at this as well, but they've called him the question,

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Speaker 1: this relationship between Dodgson and the real Alice Liddell. Right

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Speaker 1: as the article puts it, that that Columbia University Acclay

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Speaker 1: was pretty much the last time that the book was

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Speaker 1: viewed without a lot of sexual confusion, because the very

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Speaker 1: next year there was a writer named A. M. E.

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Speaker 1: Goldschmidt who um wrote an essay called Alice in Wonderlands

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Speaker 1: psycho Analyzed, and the whole thing is about how Lewis

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Speaker 1: Carroll had the sexual desire for Alice. That the book

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Speaker 1: is just rampant with all this hidden pedophilia that you know,

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Speaker 1: every single thing that Alice does is somehow a symbol

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Speaker 1: of repressed sexuality. And there's some evidence acca Smithsonian that

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Speaker 1: this was supposed to be a parody of the psychoanalysts,

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of vogue that was going on at

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Speaker 1: the point. But for whatever reason, these kind of um

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Speaker 1: viewpoints stuck well. And there's one piece of evidence that

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Speaker 1: some will point to to say that Dodgson had some

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Speaker 1: kind of sexual obsession with Alice, and it's this photograph

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Speaker 1: that he took over where she's dressed up like a

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Speaker 1: beggar and she is partially nude. Although Smithsonian also points

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Speaker 1: out that Dodgson took a ton of photographs throughout his life,

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Speaker 1: over three thousand photographs, and about half of them are

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Speaker 1: of children. And then about thirty of those pictures or

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Speaker 1: the kids are depicted nude or semi nude. But then

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Speaker 1: the magazine explains, uh, you know, as all of our

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Speaker 1: red flags are going up saying whoa Lois Carroll child pornographer? Um.

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Speaker 1: He Also, the magazine also points out that in Victorian

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Speaker 1: era those kind of nude depictions of children were not

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Speaker 1: uncommon at all. Right, They're seen his portrayal of innocence,

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Speaker 1: portrayal of you know, angelic art. That this was a

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Speaker 1: time in a child's life to preserve and so you know,

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Speaker 1: they make a big point of saying this was not

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Speaker 1: out of the norm. The Ladell's, by all account, love

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Speaker 1: the photograph that he took of Alice. But there was

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Speaker 1: some sort of snag with the family. You know, he

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Speaker 1: um took many children, not just the Ladell children al

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Speaker 1: And he would he had no children of his own,

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Speaker 1: so we take them out for picnics. He would take

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Speaker 1: them rowing on boats. He was sort of an adopted uncle.

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Speaker 1: He was seen as a fun, friendly uncle. But there

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Speaker 1: was some ripped with the family that caused him not

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Speaker 1: to see the girls of ladel family after the book

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Speaker 1: was written. And while the popular rumor would be that

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Speaker 1: it was because of some sort of untoward advances that

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Speaker 1: he made towards Alice, uh, there's also a possibility that

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Speaker 1: he could have had an affair with Mrs Liddell, with

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Speaker 1: the nanny with the older girls. Um, something probably along

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Speaker 1: the way happened, but we're not sure and it doesn't

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Speaker 1: necessarily implicate Lewis Carroll as a pedophile. But it makes

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Speaker 1: me wonder, though, Molly, if discerning parents out there who

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Speaker 1: know this possible backstory to Lewis Carroll and his relationship

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Speaker 1: with a real life Alice, I wonder if there's been

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Speaker 1: some sort of um small backlash towards sharing these books

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Speaker 1: with children because of maybe these sexual undertones that they

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Speaker 1: weren't aware of. Well, think about the most recent Alice

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Speaker 1: in Wonderland that came out, the one directed by Tim Burton.

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Speaker 1: I think that one was directed towards adults. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: think that because people can see so much you know,

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Speaker 1: psychedelic groov nous for lack of or term in Alice

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Speaker 1: in Wonderland that you know, there is sort of a

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Speaker 1: backlash against sharing them with children. But um, and I

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Speaker 1: think that that's why I liked this article so much.

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Speaker 1: Is you know, I remember reading that book and just

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Speaker 1: thinking it was pretty cool, crazy book, and then when

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Speaker 1: you find out all this backstory is just like whoa.

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Speaker 1: I mean, even when I was watching the play, it's

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Speaker 1: you know, it's impossible to be distracted because it involved

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Speaker 1: acrobatics and the tea party every now and then you

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Speaker 1: remember like, oh, yeah, this is supposed to be like

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Speaker 1: very subversive, and I'm I'm not getting it or I

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Speaker 1: am getting it and screeping me out right. Um. And

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Speaker 1: now listeners might be wondering at this point, uh, why

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Speaker 1: we're going on and on about Lewis Carrol when the

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Speaker 1: question we're supposed to be talking about is whether or

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Speaker 1: not there are feminist icons in children's lit. And I

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Speaker 1: think this discussion is a really good example of how

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Speaker 1: you might be able to take children's literature and really

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Speaker 1: analyze it to the point that it might devalue the

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Speaker 1: original text. And I think it might be a good

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Speaker 1: starting place for us to really shift from Alice, who.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that we could call Alice a feminist icon.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's a fantastic book, but I don't know

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Speaker 1: what you consider Alice a feminist icon, Molly. I see

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Speaker 1: a lot of feminist elements center she. You know, she's

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Speaker 1: on this journey by herself. Yes, she's very independent. She's independent,

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Speaker 1: she's very clever. She makes a goal of becoming a

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Speaker 1: queen and sets out to meet it. But isn't that

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Speaker 1: a negative gold how to be give a queen? Well?

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Speaker 1: Now see that's the thing is can you unpack it

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Speaker 1: too much? As a kid? I was just like, oh, man,

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Speaker 1: here's this spunky girl who's going through a crazy world.

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Speaker 1: I want to have crazy adventures too. So, and especially

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Speaker 1: when you're watching the play, which, as I said, involves

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Speaker 1: all this acrobatics. Our fan Lindsay, who plays Alice, does

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Speaker 1: all these cool tricks circus tricks. She has circus training.

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Speaker 1: I mean when you see that, I would think of

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Speaker 1: you're a little girl in solid You'd be like, man,

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Speaker 1: that girl is awesome, Yeah, very strong, very powerful. As

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Speaker 1: you said, Christ, they're going to move away from Alice

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Speaker 1: because you know, it's it's just been read into far

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Speaker 1: too much in my opinion, and it's as you said,

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Speaker 1: it's hard to separate all the analysis from perhaps the

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Speaker 1: text itself. So we want to talk about other favorites

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Speaker 1: from our childhood literature reading days and whether the girls

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Speaker 1: and women we encountered within those books were in fact

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Speaker 1: some sort of feminist role models, you know, did they

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Speaker 1: help make us the girls who grew up to be

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Speaker 1: stuff mom never told you. Now, there was a study

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Speaker 1: that Molly and I found by Manjari Saying called Gender

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Speaker 1: Issues in Children's Literature, and it basically theorizes that there

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Speaker 1: is a general gender bias in the language, content, and

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Speaker 1: illustrations in a large number of children's books because, first

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Speaker 1: of all, she says that a majority of the books

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Speaker 1: are dominated by male figures. Um For instance, there was

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Speaker 1: an analysis titles of children's books that found male names

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Speaker 1: represented nearly twice as often as female names, and then

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Speaker 1: you often and have the characterizations of boys as being

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Speaker 1: more strong, adventurous, independent and capable, all girls with a

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Speaker 1: sweeter naive, conforming, and more dependent characters. So seeing this study,

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Speaker 1: Molly and I kind of wanted to reverse a little

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Speaker 1: bit and think about the girls that we read growing

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Speaker 1: up and um also with contemporary children's books today, whether

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Speaker 1: or not there's been more of an effort to um

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Speaker 1: alleviate that gender bias, suppose a gender bias, and we

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Speaker 1: ran across then an article, a recent article in the

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Speaker 1: Guardian newspaper. It was written by a mom who has

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Speaker 1: a young son and a young daughter and she was

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Speaker 1: trying to she basically tested out feminist children's books on

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Speaker 1: her kids. Right, she noticed that her boy was getting

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Speaker 1: a little too stereotypically boyish, didn't want to invite girls

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Speaker 1: to his birthday party, and the girl was turning into

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Speaker 1: you know, pink princess extraordinary, and so she was like,

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Speaker 1: what can I read them that will subvert all these

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Speaker 1: things that they must be subconsciously picking up somewhere. So

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Speaker 1: the article is her adventure through what she calls feminist

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Speaker 1: books for five year olds, and she has pretty mixed

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Speaker 1: success she reads the kids Peppy long Stocking. She reads

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Speaker 1: them a coloring book called Girls Are Not Chicks, which

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Speaker 1: included one line when she stopped chasing the dangling carrot

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Speaker 1: of conventional femininity, she was finally able to save her

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Speaker 1: being a woman. And as a five year old girl,

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Speaker 1: I know that I would have understood every word of

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Speaker 1: that and probably taken it to heart. All I can

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Speaker 1: hope is that since that was a coloring book, you

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Speaker 1: got to color a carrot, because I mean, that was

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Speaker 1: all I could cling to in that sentence. And I'm,

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Speaker 1: you know, in my twenties. But um. She also reads

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Speaker 1: the books Princess Smarty Pants, The Pirate Girl, which I

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Speaker 1: have to uh just plug features a girl named Molly,

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Speaker 1: which is always plus in my book, and a book

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Speaker 1: called Adventure and he goes to work and you know it,

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Speaker 1: as you might imagine when you read books that are

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Speaker 1: kind of you know, for lack of a better word,

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Speaker 1: maybe preachy. It just it doesn't work with kids. And

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Speaker 1: she didn't even like all the messages like let's take

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Speaker 1: the pirate book. The male pirates get punished at the end,

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Speaker 1: and as the woman points out, punishing the oppressor is

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Speaker 1: not true feminism. It's just role reversal. Um. But the

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Speaker 1: kids did both the boy and the girl did like

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Speaker 1: the Pirate book because the pirate aspect appealed to the boy. Yeah. Um,

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Speaker 1: and then she was a cool like heroin It sounds like,

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Speaker 1: but but what kind of message do you send if

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Speaker 1: you just like punish the guys at the end? Very true.

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Speaker 1: And I thought it was funny too that with Pippy

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Speaker 1: long Stalking, her daughter really loved the book. I remember

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Speaker 1: Peppy long Stalking back in the day, and um, and

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Speaker 1: I thought she was great. But the boy couldn't her.

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Speaker 1: Her son couldn't care less. Yeah, you like the monkey

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Speaker 1: and I also, I mean, basically, after reading these five

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Speaker 1: or six books, the only lessons she says that the

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Speaker 1: kids really picked up was, um, the existence of the

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Speaker 1: term ms MS, which we have discussed at length in

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Speaker 1: this podcast. Um. And also the idea that marriage is

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Speaker 1: not everyone's idea of a fair detail ending, which I

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Speaker 1: think is a pretty cool lesson for a little kid

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Speaker 1: because in the Princess Smarty Pants books, Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: she runs off all the male suitors and it's like,

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna be happy by myself. So that brings

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Speaker 1: up The next question then, of are we as parents

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Speaker 1: or in my case as an aunt with a young niece, uh,

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Speaker 1: is there any value in going over and beyond to

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Speaker 1: select maybe pro feminist titles for our young children who

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Speaker 1: probably are not going to understand terms like heteronormative our

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Speaker 1: favorite term. Yes, should write a children's book just called

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Speaker 1: the heteronormative Puppy or something like that. Now girls are

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Speaker 1: not chicks, for example, might be a little heavy handed,

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Speaker 1: um in terms of pushing you know, an agenda like

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Speaker 1: you mentioned, Molly. But I, but I do think there's

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Speaker 1: something to be said for selecting or suggesting books for

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Speaker 1: especially for younger girls, not a lescence, that do promote um,

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Speaker 1: if not feminism, directly positive themes for girls. And we

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Speaker 1: found a site, um, a blog actually that listed her.

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Speaker 1: She picked her top twenty books for younger girls. Right.

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Speaker 1: This is Jen Robinson's book page is the name of

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Speaker 1: the blog, and some of the twenty cool girls and

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Speaker 1: children's literature that she calls out are let's see Claudia

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Speaker 1: from the Mixed Up Files and Mrs Basily frank Wiler,

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Speaker 1: Charlotte from Charlotte's Web, um Meg from A Wrinkle in

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Speaker 1: Time Hermione Granger from Harry Potter or Ingles from Little

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Speaker 1: House in the Prairie, And let me just say I

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Speaker 1: devoured those books as those are quite good. Joe March

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Speaker 1: from Little Women, and she included, uh, two women that

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Speaker 1: were about to talk about because we figured that they

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Speaker 1: were two of the ones that had big impacts on us,

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Speaker 1: so we picked them at random. You could easily do

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Speaker 1: ten podcasts on Chillern's learchure, but we're going to focus

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Speaker 1: on three reading uh, heroes of our childhood. So you

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Speaker 1: from Jen Robinson's list coming in at number one on

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Speaker 1: her list, was Anne of Green Gables coming in at

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Speaker 1: number eleven on her lists, Ramona Quimby, and then girls

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Speaker 1: that did not make her list. But the Chris and

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Speaker 1: I have decided are well worth discussing, the American girls Molly, Samantha,

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Speaker 1: Kirsten Feliciting. Now some of you are scratching your heads

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Speaker 1: right now about why we're going to discuss American girls.

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Speaker 1: I will say that obviously the American girl books aren't

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Speaker 1: don't necessarily hold a revered place in the canon of

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Speaker 1: children's literature like Alison Wonderland, but for today's girls, due

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Speaker 1: to their popularity. I think that they're definitely worth a

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Speaker 1: discussion because they were also books that Molly and I

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Speaker 1: read and enjoyed for certain reasons. But to kick things off,

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Speaker 1: let's start with shall I call her the Queen of

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Speaker 1: children's lit? Molly Anne of green Gables? Oh, queens? Such

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Speaker 1: a hard title to put on just one lady from

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Speaker 1: children's literally true. Make your case why is she the queen? Well,

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Speaker 1: maybe not kids lit, as I really didn't read Anne

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Speaker 1: green Gables soul I was probably twelve, but before that

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Speaker 1: the PBS special you know what I'm talking about. Every

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Speaker 1: time I was sick, I would even fake six sometimes

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Speaker 1: just so that I could watch and of green Gables.

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Speaker 1: I loved it. Um. But going back to your question,

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Speaker 1: why would I say that she deserves the top spot? Well,

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Speaker 1: first of all, there's just a huge catalog of Anne

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Speaker 1: of green Gables books, although they seem to kind of

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Speaker 1: descend in quality, um, A lot of series gonna do.

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Speaker 1: But also, she's just such an icon, and I think

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Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of young women looked up to. Right.

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Speaker 1: I liked We found this article from two thousand eight

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Speaker 1: by Kate Bullock in the New York Times, and she

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Speaker 1: points out that when the first when the book first

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Speaker 1: came out, the New York Times deemed its heroine the talkative,

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Speaker 1: redheaded orphan and Shirley to be all together too queer.

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Speaker 1: They did not like her at first, But now, as

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Speaker 1: you said, she's pretty universal beloved um And I think that,

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Speaker 1: you know, if I'm not ready to give her the

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Speaker 1: child queen, she's certainly um up there because she is

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Speaker 1: she goes her own way. I mean, when you're a kid,

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Speaker 1: when you're a little girl, I think that that's sort

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Speaker 1: of the best a book you can have as a

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Speaker 1: girl who goes her own way. You know, she lived

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Speaker 1: in kind of a weird fantasy world sometimes, well she

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Speaker 1: was an orphan Molly, she wasn't a fat in fantasy world.

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Speaker 1: She had a window friend. She overcame tremendous you know, hardship,

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Speaker 1: and she comes to this adopted family and they want

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Speaker 1: a boy, and she proves that a girl is just

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Speaker 1: as good as a boy. Right, So I do think that,

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Speaker 1: you know, she's often described as sort of this early

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Speaker 1: feminist icon in children's literature because you read it and

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Speaker 1: you're like, I can go my own way. I can

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Speaker 1: have hair that doesn't fit the norm. I can have

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Speaker 1: an attitude that doesn't fit the norm, and I'm going

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Speaker 1: to be loved and uh, you know, applauded all the same.

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Speaker 1: But speaking of Lucy moud Montgomery, Molly, why don't you

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Speaker 1: share a little bit with us about her life? So

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Speaker 1: I shall. Kristen Element Garment was born in eighteen seventy four. Uh.

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Speaker 1: She had a very sad childhood. Her mother died very

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Speaker 1: early in her life. Her father leaves her with her grandparents. Um,

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Speaker 1: so she's this only child living with, you know, very

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Speaker 1: elderly people who may not get her. She was essentially orphaned, true,

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Speaker 1: much like Ann and she retreats into her imagination. She

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Speaker 1: writes books, she wanders around Canada, because if you go

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Speaker 1: to Canada, well, she's associated with Canada, Prince Edward Island.

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Speaker 1: She's beloved by Canadians, and we know how many Canadian

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Speaker 1: fans we have. So anyway, fact about me though, my

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Speaker 1: ultimate vacation destination when I was a child was Prince

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Speaker 1: Edward Island. That was like going to the Bahamas for me,

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Speaker 1: not that I ever did it. I'm just saying, like

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Speaker 1: a dream, my dream car was an RV and my

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Speaker 1: my dream place to drive. It would have been Prince Efford,

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Speaker 1: Prince Edward Island. That's the best fun fact we've gotten

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Speaker 1: about you yet, Kristen. Someday your dream will come true.

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Speaker 1: So now she took care of her grandparents as they aged,

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Speaker 1: She taught as later Anne would also, And then she

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Speaker 1: married a young reverend and moved off Prince Edward Island

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Speaker 1: and really tried to focus on her writing as she rose,

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Speaker 1: as she brought up her children, and she got just

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Speaker 1: a ton of rejections. She was not popular at first. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, she was making some money as a writer,

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Speaker 1: not a lot. Nineteen o five, she writes and up

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Speaker 1: Green Gables. It's rejected, and it's not told usually that

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Speaker 1: she dusted off, and she's like, oh, I'm gonna try again.

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Speaker 1: She finally, she finally gets it published, and then she

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Speaker 1: continues to write, go on to write twenty novels, many

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Speaker 1: of them about Anne's later life. Um. But one sort

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Speaker 1: of factor I liked about this biography that that we

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Speaker 1: got on Ella Montgomery is that they point out, you know,

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Speaker 1: just how almost it sounds weird to say, but almost,

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Speaker 1: how tragic her life was, and how deeply she felt

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Speaker 1: all these things that were going on about you know,

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Speaker 1: there was a war going on, and her husband had problems,

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Speaker 1: and she had this very sad childhood. And I think

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Speaker 1: that the later and books get really a lot of criticism.

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Speaker 1: Very few people read them because you really just want

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Speaker 1: the spunky girl. They kind of peter her out. And

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Speaker 1: as Anne grows, I mean, she marries, she wants all

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Speaker 1: her friends to get married. Um, you know, she becomes

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Speaker 1: very conservative in terms of social norm So I think

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Speaker 1: that that's probably why people might have trouble totally embracing Anne,

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Speaker 1: because she kind of becomes weird. I'm just gonna quite

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Speaker 1: say that she becomes weird. She becomes weird. But I

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Speaker 1: think that that is a reflection of La Montgomery's life.

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Speaker 1: And I think that that's why you can't, as opposed

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Speaker 1: to this arc on The Guardian, all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: just say well, I'm only going to embrace like the

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Speaker 1: raw ra feminism books because life is hard and that

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Speaker 1: reflection in literature can be very valuable for a child. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And and that brings up an article that we've found

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Speaker 1: in the New York Times from two thousand that really

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Speaker 1: points out that a lot of these children's books that

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Speaker 1: we really hold Near and Dear have a lot of

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Speaker 1: darker undertones that are reflect did in the author's life.

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Speaker 1: So I mean it calls out the fact that Beatrix Potter,

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Speaker 1: and writing about Peter Rabbit, was really writing about life

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Speaker 1: and death. We have Hans Christian Anderson who was broody

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Speaker 1: and reclusive, and Luisa may Alcott who romanticized the confusion

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Speaker 1: of her own childhood and a self portrait of Joe

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Speaker 1: and little women, right, you know, I mean, and and

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Speaker 1: you see the same thing like we're talking with Ellen

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Speaker 1: Montgomery orphaned and as orphaned. Those books that seemed to

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Speaker 1: strike a chord with children are the ones that do

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Speaker 1: reflect the fact that life is hard, that maybe the

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Speaker 1: girl doesn't always win in the end, and that's sort

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Speaker 1: of the opposite of what the woman in the Guardian

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Speaker 1: was looking for for her children. I mean, and girl

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Speaker 1: or boy? I mean, if I think the classic example

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Speaker 1: of this would be um Maurice Sadas Where the Wild

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Speaker 1: Things Are. I mean, it's a boy protagonist, but I

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Speaker 1: mean it's a very violent book about a very angry child.

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Speaker 1: And um girl or boor I don't I don't feel

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Speaker 1: like that just because there isn't a girl in the book.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't that it pushes some kind of gender agenda. Um,

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Speaker 1: but uh yeah, I mean I think it's it's pretty

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Speaker 1: clear when you start digging into those books that we

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Speaker 1: really identified with personally as children, Um, they were the

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Speaker 1: ones that really, um, I don't know, they had had

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Speaker 1: the darker undertones to them. For instance, I think this

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Speaker 1: would be a good point to segue into number eleven

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Speaker 1: on that list we mentioned earlier, which are the Ramona

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Speaker 1: Quimby books. Number eleven on that list, but number one

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Speaker 1: in my heart. Yes, Molly and I both huge fans

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Speaker 1: of the Ramona books by Beverly Cleary. Ramona Quimby actually

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Speaker 1: started off as a character in her Henry Higgins books,

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Speaker 1: which were also fantastic, and then she sort of took

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Speaker 1: on a life of her own and then spawned this

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Speaker 1: eight book series. And I don't know about you, Molly,

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Speaker 1: but when I think of all of the young girl

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Speaker 1: characters that I fantasized about and you know, played as

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Speaker 1: my imaginary play as a kid, read about, etcetera, etcetera,

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Speaker 1: Ramona Quimby stands out in my mind as the number

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Speaker 1: one girl I identified with. I just wanted to have

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Speaker 1: her attitude do you remember when um, the lady told

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Speaker 1: her the cat's got your tongue, and she stuck out

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Speaker 1: her tongue. Like. I could have never done that when

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Speaker 1: I was five. I would have been like, too rude,

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Speaker 1: too rude. But I just loved that Ramona did it. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: I think it was just as a as a kid,

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Speaker 1: it was really it was really great to read about

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Speaker 1: this girl who, yes has a has a lot of pluck.

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Speaker 1: She was pretty funny in the descriptions. The Beverly Query

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Speaker 1: Rights are just so great, but there are also a

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Speaker 1: lot of very painful, poignant moments in these books because

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Speaker 1: life isn't perfect for the Quimby family at all. You

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Speaker 1: have her dad who loses his job at some point,

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Speaker 1: and it stays at home while he's looking for work,

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Speaker 1: and he's chain smoking all the time, and there's understandable

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Speaker 1: tension between Mr and Mrs Quimby and Ramona over heres

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Speaker 1: fights that they have. And then at one point, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we were talking earlier and you said, how, um, how

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Speaker 1: how one of the points in those fights really got

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Speaker 1: to you as a kid. Yeah, there's some moment I

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Speaker 1: forget which book it was, where um, the Quimbies are

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Speaker 1: fighting and like the father Swatts, the mother with a

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Speaker 1: spatula or something like that, and it really affects Ramona hard.

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Speaker 1: She's convinced that her world is going to end. And um,

425
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:26,400
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, oh gosh, Ramona isn't an abusive household.

426
00:23:26,760 --> 00:23:30,160
Speaker 1: But um yeah, I mean just that, as you said,

427
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:32,560
Speaker 1: like that pluck in the midst of dark times. It

428
00:23:32,640 --> 00:23:35,800
Speaker 1: doesn't jump out as a feminist hero per se when

429
00:23:35,800 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 1: you're reading it, But I think that that is what

430
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 1: makes it so relatable and so valuable for little girls.

431
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 1: And also the thing I liked about Ramona. She wasn't cute, right,

432
00:23:43,800 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 1: I mean it's kind of grubby. Yeah, I mean, like

433
00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:48,520
Speaker 1: if you think of um, I think it's the kind

434
00:23:48,520 --> 00:23:51,240
Speaker 1: of Ramona quimby ag where it's just like her weird

435
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:54,840
Speaker 1: face and her weird hair that's all like different links.

436
00:23:54,960 --> 00:23:58,560
Speaker 1: She's yeah, because she has to have uh haircuts at

437
00:23:58,560 --> 00:24:00,879
Speaker 1: home because they can't afford to, you know, pay for

438
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:03,440
Speaker 1: her to go get a haircut elsewhere. Yeah. I mean,

439
00:24:03,480 --> 00:24:05,440
Speaker 1: and I think that there's a movie coming out and

440
00:24:05,480 --> 00:24:08,600
Speaker 1: I think Ramona looks like actually kind of pretty, and

441
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:11,440
Speaker 1: I I kind of don't like it. I mean, that's

442
00:24:11,440 --> 00:24:15,439
Speaker 1: a whole another issue about like reflections of beauty and

443
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:17,280
Speaker 1: to girls at a young age. But I think that

444
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: plays a factor. I think one of the reasons I

445
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:20,399
Speaker 1: did like Ramona as I was like, oh good, not

446
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,000
Speaker 1: a princess, right, But I gotta say, Molly, when I

447
00:24:23,040 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: was reading all of these articles about, you know, feminist

448
00:24:26,720 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 1: icons and children's lit. What we should be passing along

449
00:24:29,359 --> 00:24:34,360
Speaker 1: to our girls, reinforcing these values for strong womanhood, etcetera, etcetera,

450
00:24:34,400 --> 00:24:37,359
Speaker 1: and then I remembered Ramona. I mean, to me, the

451
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:40,840
Speaker 1: most the more important thing that I would like to

452
00:24:40,880 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 1: pass on to my niece isn't necessarily girls aren't chicks,

453
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 1: you know, teaching her about you know, just go for it,

454
00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: young girl. Don't e just blast through the glass ceiling.

455
00:24:52,440 --> 00:24:55,880
Speaker 1: She doesn't know about that, you know. I think it's

456
00:24:56,320 --> 00:25:02,080
Speaker 1: more important to pass along literature that um takes kids

457
00:25:02,119 --> 00:25:07,720
Speaker 1: seriously and I don't know, gives them a chance to

458
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:11,600
Speaker 1: um use their imagination but also relate to things and

459
00:25:12,000 --> 00:25:14,280
Speaker 1: be able to ask those questions that they might not

460
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: want to ask about, you know, why their parents are fighting,

461
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:20,000
Speaker 1: or why their dad's at home and can't find a job,

462
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 1: and you know, all of those, all of those types

463
00:25:22,600 --> 00:25:25,280
Speaker 1: of issues that there is no easy answer for. I

464
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:28,080
Speaker 1: think that those big things are more important in children's

465
00:25:28,080 --> 00:25:32,760
Speaker 1: development than necessarily um setting out the you know, the

466
00:25:32,800 --> 00:25:37,159
Speaker 1: differences between male and female psyches, although there were a

467
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:39,920
Speaker 1: lot of differences between Henry Higgins and Ramona Quimbe instream.

468
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:43,160
Speaker 1: So on that note, Kristen Let's transition, ever so briefly

469
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:46,680
Speaker 1: to the American girl dolls. Um, when I was growing up,

470
00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:52,359
Speaker 1: these girls came into being in the and so I

471
00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 1: was there for the beginning of this. I remember when

472
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:56,880
Speaker 1: there were just three American girls. Now they're like, really

473
00:25:56,960 --> 00:26:00,680
Speaker 1: dating yourself, Molle. That's fine because when never I talked

474
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 1: to my little cousins now who know about the spectacle

475
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:06,919
Speaker 1: that is an American girl store, they don't understand what

476
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:09,240
Speaker 1: it was like to just get your catalog and the

477
00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 1: mail once a quarter. Getting that quarterly catalog was so

478
00:26:13,600 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 1: exciting in my household, and you'd circle the things you'd

479
00:26:16,480 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: want and you mail away from them. That they was

480
00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,000
Speaker 1: They were so weird because they weren't in stores. And

481
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: now I would argue that maybe the American Girls means

482
00:26:24,119 --> 00:26:27,080
Speaker 1: something different to a younger generation because it is like,

483
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 1: must consume all dolls must go to the store and

484
00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:32,880
Speaker 1: have a tea party with my doll, which, by the way,

485
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,120
Speaker 1: control which, by the way, I really want to do. Well.

486
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:37,439
Speaker 1: I hope I'm invited. Molly, you can bring your American

487
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:39,600
Speaker 1: girl doll. Yeah, Molly and I both had the same

488
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,520
Speaker 1: American girl doll. Side note, we had Samantha. Many people

489
00:26:43,560 --> 00:26:45,919
Speaker 1: think I would have Molly because, as I noted earlier,

490
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 1: I loved books with my name and them that was

491
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 1: my guests. But I feel that Molly's backstory was not

492
00:26:51,480 --> 00:26:55,440
Speaker 1: as exciting to me as Samantha's was. But speaking of backstory, um,

493
00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:57,040
Speaker 1: because that's the little reason we're bringing it up in

494
00:26:57,080 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: a book podcast. You should talk about the books because

495
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: they've got When it just started out, like you said,

496
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:03,320
Speaker 1: with the three girls. I mean this was the company

497
00:27:03,320 --> 00:27:06,440
Speaker 1: was started by a woman named Pleasant Rowland, and when

498
00:27:06,480 --> 00:27:08,280
Speaker 1: it started out, there were three girls, and they were

499
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:11,000
Speaker 1: also the books that went along with the dolls, and

500
00:27:11,040 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 1: that was half the experience. You know. I would go

501
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:15,880
Speaker 1: to you know, I only had Samantha, but I would

502
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:19,480
Speaker 1: read all Felicities books and ADDIE's books. Well, actually, I

503
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:22,359
Speaker 1: think Addie was kind of after my time. Molly's books

504
00:27:23,119 --> 00:27:25,199
Speaker 1: you get the Drift. I've read all the books and

505
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:27,679
Speaker 1: you learned so much from They were both educational and

506
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 1: things you could identify with, because, like Ramona, these were

507
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:34,280
Speaker 1: pretty spunky girls having adventures in hard times. Me Samantha

508
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:37,440
Speaker 1: was also an orphan. But I will say to this day,

509
00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:40,120
Speaker 1: I know what a petite four is thanks to Samantha Parkington.

510
00:27:40,480 --> 00:27:43,440
Speaker 1: Very true, me too. But these books were written by

511
00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:46,680
Speaker 1: Valerie Trip, and many of them, not all of them, Yeah,

512
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: a lot of them were written by by Valerie Trip.

513
00:27:48,920 --> 00:27:53,640
Speaker 1: And we read an article about Trip and she said

514
00:27:53,640 --> 00:27:55,600
Speaker 1: the thing that she really wanted to drive home with

515
00:27:55,640 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 1: those books was keeping them age appropriate. She felt like,

516
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:01,840
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of times girls, younger girls were

517
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 1: sort of pushed from being girls straight into being women,

518
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:10,479
Speaker 1: you know, and she wanted to give them something that

519
00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:13,000
Speaker 1: was educational and that would get them reading and also

520
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:16,280
Speaker 1: allow them to enjoy their girlhood. And I think a

521
00:28:16,320 --> 00:28:18,920
Speaker 1: great thing about the American Girl books where that all

522
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:22,440
Speaker 1: of them are set in different historical time periods, and

523
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 1: they would have these nifty little sidebars on some of

524
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:29,240
Speaker 1: the pages that would give you a backstory, historical backstory

525
00:28:29,280 --> 00:28:31,639
Speaker 1: on whatever is going on at the time, because, for instance,

526
00:28:31,640 --> 00:28:33,920
Speaker 1: I remember what the Samantha books. There was some book

527
00:28:33,960 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: about her grandpapa or something getting a horseless carriage, and yeah,

528
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 1: and and so they had, you know, a sidebar on

529
00:28:42,640 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 1: on the model t or something like. I learned a

530
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 1: lot about World War Two from the Molly book What's

531
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 1: a Victory Garden? I know because of Molly Me Can Tear.

532
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: So these are three random examples Kristen picked from different

533
00:28:54,080 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: time periods. There four different ages, but these were three

534
00:28:56,600 --> 00:29:00,400
Speaker 1: formative characters. I'm gonna group all the American girls as

535
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:03,400
Speaker 1: one character, but um, three characters that just really spoke

536
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:06,560
Speaker 1: to us as young girls. And I think that we've

537
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: identified that the common theme is that they have hard

538
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:12,880
Speaker 1: circumstances that they've got to overcome or at least identifiable problems.

539
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:17,600
Speaker 1: They are plucky and clever about solving those problems. Yea,

540
00:29:17,640 --> 00:29:19,120
Speaker 1: they have to use their wits to get out of

541
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:21,920
Speaker 1: a jam. And what else can we say about them?

542
00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: Because I do think these are sort of feminist role models,

543
00:29:26,240 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 1: but maybe not necessarily feminist, with like all the strident

544
00:29:29,720 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 1: militancy that sometimes the term implies. Well, I think that

545
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 1: we could say I'm kind of like you mentioned we

546
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:37,600
Speaker 1: were talking about Ramona. The stories have to do deal

547
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: more with the girls brains than their bodies, you know,

548
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 1: and it allows us to maybe you know, teach us

549
00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 1: girls to value um building strong characters rather than having

550
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 1: to obsess over their faces. Um. And also I think

551
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: we need to call out if if any of you

552
00:29:57,080 --> 00:30:01,320
Speaker 1: guys are interested in learning more about more modern day

553
00:30:01,440 --> 00:30:06,080
Speaker 1: um books with feminists overtones for younger readers. Molly found

554
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:08,840
Speaker 1: the Amelia Bloomer Project, which is kind of a kind

555
00:30:08,840 --> 00:30:11,920
Speaker 1: of an interesting blog you might want to check out. Yeah,

556
00:30:11,960 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: what they do is every year they pick the best

557
00:30:14,320 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: books that have come out in the previous year for

558
00:30:16,680 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: everyone from birth to the age of eighteen. Uh, that

559
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:23,120
Speaker 1: that have good examples of female role models, people who

560
00:30:23,200 --> 00:30:26,680
Speaker 1: are are getting it done. And uh they released about

561
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:29,320
Speaker 1: like fifty books every year, so you could you could

562
00:30:29,480 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 1: occupy yourself for for quite a while, which is the

563
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: Amelia bloomerless. And speaking of occupying yourself, the reason we

564
00:30:35,800 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 1: did talk about literature today is we are again asking

565
00:30:38,560 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: as we did last year, for everyone's summer reading lists. Yeah,

566
00:30:42,160 --> 00:30:44,240
Speaker 1: because everyone loved that. We've got lots of ideas about

567
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 1: what to read and we want to know what you're reading,

568
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 1: and what you read as a child that you think

569
00:30:49,040 --> 00:30:53,120
Speaker 1: shaped your life in some demonstrable way. Right last year,

570
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:55,720
Speaker 1: people were reading a lot of Chuck Palink, Neil Gaiman,

571
00:30:55,880 --> 00:31:00,320
Speaker 1: and David Sedaris, et cetera. What are you reading this summer? Oh,

572
00:31:00,360 --> 00:31:04,400
Speaker 1: and of course the Twilight series and Sukie Stackhouse, which

573
00:31:04,480 --> 00:31:06,640
Speaker 1: inspired our vampire podcast. So we'll love to see what

574
00:31:06,640 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 1: you guys are doing because it may inspire yet another

575
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:11,400
Speaker 1: book podcast. Yes, send us your list, or if you

576
00:31:11,640 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 1: don't want to send us your email. If you want

577
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:17,600
Speaker 1: to share your reading lists with everyone else, you should

578
00:31:17,600 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 1: post it on our new Facebook page. Let's just search

579
00:31:21,960 --> 00:31:23,720
Speaker 1: stuff mom Never told You. It will come up, or

580
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 1: you can do Facebook dot com backslash stuff mom Never

581
00:31:27,440 --> 00:31:30,080
Speaker 1: told You. But if you'd like to email us, the

582
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:33,200
Speaker 1: email address is mom Stuff at how stuff works dot com.

583
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:35,760
Speaker 1: And if you'd like to follow Molly me during the week,

584
00:31:35,880 --> 00:31:39,360
Speaker 1: you can hop on over to Twitter. We have a

585
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:42,960
Speaker 1: Twitter account there with lots of fun tweets. Our name

586
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:47,000
Speaker 1: is mom Stuff Podcast. And then finally, you should check

587
00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 1: out our brand new blog, It's stuff I've Never told

588
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: You and you can find that at how stuff works

589
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 1: dot com. For more on this and thousands of other topics.

590
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:02,520
Speaker 1: Does it How stuff works dot Com. Want more house

591
00:32:02,520 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: stuff Works, check out our blogs on the house stuff

592
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:11,920
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593
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