On Monday, Mary Ann kicked off our series of posts in honor of Women's History Month. The logo you see at left is from the Kidlit Celebrates Women's History Month site, which will feature posts from 31 different children's authors and bloggers discussing the topic of women's history in books for children and teens. Today's post there by Elizabeth Bird of School Library Journal's Fuse#8 blog highlights several great children's books about uncelebrated women of history.
Today also happens to be World Read Aloud Day. When you're finished reading this post, head on over to the official World Read Aloud website to learn more.
Now, back to the subject of Women's History: Like Mary Ann, I love reading well-written historical fiction featuring female protagonists. It's the next best thing to time travel! However, I despise books where female protagonists are not portrayed authentically. One of my specific "pet peeves" is the absence of church or prayer in novels set in times and places where daily life revolved around religious practices. Historical novelist Linda Proud expressed similar feelings on her blog:
As an author, though, I know it can be tricky to incorporate religious practices without boring our readers, especially when those readers are children or teens. My current work-in-progress is a young-adult novel set in 18th-century Milan and inspired by two real-life sisters. More is known about the elder sister, Maria, a child prodigy who could speak seven languages by her teen years and who became famous as a female mathematician. I originally considered making her the novel's main character. But Maria was a devoutly religious girl who spent her teen years trying to convince her father to let her become a nun. I decided it would be too challenging (for me, at least) to hook today's average teen reader with such a main character."I’ve just read a book set in the 13th century where neither the feisty heroine . . . nor her lover nor her horrible husband nor any other character ever goes to church. Never a priest wanders into the story, never a bell rings, never a new cathedral appears on the skyline. Don’t get me wrong – it was exceptionally-well written and a gripping read. It was just that something was missing, . . . ."
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2 Comments on Writing Authentic Women's History--Getting Inside Your Character's Skin, last added: 3/8/2012
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By: Carmela Martino and 5 other authors,
on 3/5/2012
Blog: Teaching Authors (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap) JacketFlap tags: strong female characters, revisionist history, historical fiction, Women's History Month, Add a tag
Hooray! It's Women's History Month! I love historical fiction. I write historical fiction. These two facts are something of a miracle, considering that I grew up disliking historical fiction.
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Great post, Carmela! Funny, I am working on a YA historical, and I switched my protagonist to the younger sister who was not the one that originally caught my attention. Once I made the shift, writing the story became so much easier!
What an interesting coincidence about your main character shift, Lisa. Good luck!