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That's a common saying by writers and publishers, that boys won't read books with girl leads, but girls will read boy or girl leads. This always struck me as weird, personally -- I'm not doubting the claim, it just has no resonance to me. These days I might read more female lead fiction than not. But hey, I'm an adult, what was my boyhood like?
The most correct answer is "I can barely date exactly when I read anything". But I have no memory of rejecting anything because it had a girl. As to stuff I did read before college:
Heidi
The Secret Garden
the Alice books
A Wrinkle in Time (and both sequels, though Charles Wallace shares the spotlight in the third.)
Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, also Moreta's Story and Nerilka's Song.
The Narnia books, two of which have Lucy prominently and one has Jillian.
The Blue Sword, though I forgot reading it, twice. (In college I had deja vu about having deja vu about reading it.)
And then there's Star Trek:
My Enemy, My Ally, which I've re-read a lot, and splits POV between Ael and Kirk.
Uhura's Song
Tears of the Singers -- I don't remember these all that well, but Wikipedia says both are Uhura-centric[1].
Dwellers in the Crucible.
Dreadnought! and Battlestations! aka the Piper (a woman) books. They're also first-person perspective.
I think there was also a bit of dabbling in Ramona and Beverly Clearly or Nancy Drew, but by the time I found those I'd pretty much outgrown them.
All that (21 books, not counting the real kiddie ones) doesn't seem like a lot for 10 years of reading (age 7-17), but then I doubt I could make a list that would feel plausibly complete for the time period.
[1] At some point -- I no longer think second grade, because none of the books were published yet -- I was given a box set of four Star Trek novels: the three mentioned before the footnote, and The Wounded Sky, which was mostly Kirk POV though did have a lot of extra and non-sexualized female characters. All four were by women authors, too, two of them by Diane Duane. Not that I paid much attention to authors before college. In retrospect, this is an interesting box set for Pocket Books to put out. Not like the books are consecutive or directly related.
The most correct answer is "I can barely date exactly when I read anything". But I have no memory of rejecting anything because it had a girl. As to stuff I did read before college:
Heidi
The Secret Garden
the Alice books
A Wrinkle in Time (and both sequels, though Charles Wallace shares the spotlight in the third.)
Dragonsong and Dragonsinger, also Moreta's Story and Nerilka's Song.
The Narnia books, two of which have Lucy prominently and one has Jillian.
The Blue Sword, though I forgot reading it, twice. (In college I had deja vu about having deja vu about reading it.)
And then there's Star Trek:
My Enemy, My Ally, which I've re-read a lot, and splits POV between Ael and Kirk.
Uhura's Song
Tears of the Singers -- I don't remember these all that well, but Wikipedia says both are Uhura-centric[1].
Dwellers in the Crucible.
Dreadnought! and Battlestations! aka the Piper (a woman) books. They're also first-person perspective.
I think there was also a bit of dabbling in Ramona and Beverly Clearly or Nancy Drew, but by the time I found those I'd pretty much outgrown them.
All that (21 books, not counting the real kiddie ones) doesn't seem like a lot for 10 years of reading (age 7-17), but then I doubt I could make a list that would feel plausibly complete for the time period.
[1] At some point -- I no longer think second grade, because none of the books were published yet -- I was given a box set of four Star Trek novels: the three mentioned before the footnote, and The Wounded Sky, which was mostly Kirk POV though did have a lot of extra and non-sexualized female characters. All four were by women authors, too, two of them by Diane Duane. Not that I paid much attention to authors before college. In retrospect, this is an interesting box set for Pocket Books to put out. Not like the books are consecutive or directly related.
no subject
Date: 2015-11-25 02:32 (UTC)From: (Anonymous)MOSTLY GIRL PROTAGONISTS:
Ramona Quimby series
Little Women
Anne of Green Gables, Emily of New Moon, and other LM Montgomery series
The Witch of Blackbird Pond
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle
The Great Gilly Hopkins series
Secret Garden & also the Little Princess
The "Are you there, God? It's me, Margaret" series
The Anastasia Krupnik series
Pippi Longstocking series
Harriet the Spy
Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry series
Bringing Nettie Back (that book made me cry)
The Witch Series (Witch's Eye, Witch's Sister, etc)
Plus an absurd number of Babysitter's Club, Saddle Club, and the Sweet Valley series.
Tons of Madeleine L'Engle, including all the Meg Murray books, the Vicky Austin books, and the Polly O'Keefe book.
MOSTLY BOY PROTAGONISTS:
Madeleine L'Engle's Many Waters and the Arm of the Starfish, which had male protagonists.
The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings
Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and the sequels
The Little Prince
Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn
My Side of the Mountain
George Washington's Socks
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
BOTH BOY AND GIRL PROTAGONISTS:
Boxcar Children series.
The Road Dahl books had both boy and girl protagonists I think
I may be primed to remember the female protagonists, but I think this is a fair representation. So I at least was more likely to read books with girl protagonists.
~ Shauna
no subject
Date: 2015-11-25 03:42 (UTC)From:Charlie and Choc
Charlie and Glass
Tom Sawyer
Huck Finn
Prince and Pauper
Deep Range
Imperial Earth
Earthlight
Mallory's Arthur
Moby Dick
Monte Cristo
Les Mis
Black Stallion series
Cowboy Feng's Space Bar
last stand of the DNA cowboys
My Side of the Mountain
Sherlock Holmes stories
2001
2010
Job: A Comedy of Justice
Price of the Phoenix
Fate of the Phoenix
Yesterday's Son
-- and the one related to that
Chronoplanes Wars books
Adventures of Remi
Little Prince
Raphael (by MacAvoy)
...Mouse and the Motorcyle sounds familiar, now that you mention it.
Wind in the Willows
Alas, Babylon
Book of the Dun Cow
Caves of Steel, and more Asimov
Hobbit
LotR
Earthsea trilogy
the *other* Narnia books (Horse was my first, I think, I could do a whole post on series I started in the wrong place)
Prydain
Once and Future King
That's 39 entries, without expanding series. And probably more would come to mind with thought. Vs. 21 'girl' above.
probably at least a couple more Star Treks
Robotech books
not sure about:
four book SF series by Juanita Coulson, lots of alien sex
all six Dune books
something by Delaney, largely gay men but I think some woman POV too
various other horse books, Misty of Attateague, Black Beauty
Childhood's End
Andromeda Strain
I figure I was reading what I found in my public and school libraries, plus browsing the UIC bookstore in high school. No avoidance of girls, but not seeking them out either, and largely reading SF or fantasy. If you fall into Asimov and Clarke, you're not going to be getting a lot of female perspective. McCaffrey was somewhat ameliorative there.