What The 'Best Books For Girls' Can Teach Us About Bella

Yesterday I tweeted a top ten list of books for girls and young women compiled by arts and culture blog Flavorpill. Really I couldn’t resist. Matilda! The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler!? Those books meant so much to me that just seeing their covers literally gave me goosebumps. And judging by the healthy number of retweets, I know I’m not alone. Of course, this isn’t the first (or last) effort to evoke that visceral re-connection, but it’s a pretty stellar selection with an angle we could get behind. From the intro:

Here are our top ten choices of books for girls and young women — we have some overlap with TAOM’s list (because why should girls only read books about girls?) but we’ve also picked out some spectacular novels particularly for the young ladies. Our claim: boys will like them too.

TAOM = The Art of Manliness, the blog that inspired Flavorpill’s Top Ten by posting a pretty fantastic list of 50 great reads for boys and young men (The Phantom Tollbooth! A Wrinkle in Time!) of their own. It’s enough to make me want to raid my current and childhood bookshelves, hanker down for some serious re-reading and spend some quality time with these characters. Can we just talk for a minute about these characters? Both lists favor protagonists after my own heart, but focusing on the “Girls/Young Women” list we see a wide range smart, adventurous, witty types with emotional complexity to boot. Just ripe for the picking of role models… and comparisons with certain contemporary heroines who may not be up to snuff.

Yes, the anti-Bella/Twilight sentiment isn’t exactly hidden here (I believe the phrase “Mormon propaganda” actually gets dropped in the intro) and it seems, with the imminent release of “New Moon” and the mockable wave of heartthrob-centric marketing and merchandising around the film, ‘tis once again the season for Twilight bashing. Truth be told, I haven’t exactly been the series’ greatest supporter. Those who know me have sat through many a session of heated analysis around Bella and her relationship with Edward where I’ve expressed frustration over her lack of self-confidence, the intense codependence and an almost complete lack of ambitions outside of the romantic relationship (college? friends?). Still, I wouldn’t hold Bella up as the antithesis of all those who made the list. The Twi-hards, or whatever you’d like to call devoted Twilight fans, deserve more credit than that.

I’d like to believe, regardless of my personal response, that the female tween and teen readers who embrace the series are able to see those qualities I listed in Bella. I’d hope they would seek them out in order to identify with her and defend themselves (and the character) against arguments and concerns from Twilght dissenters. In that spirit, while reviewing Flavorpill’s list, I started to think about how classics like those (along with contemporary fictional heroines) could actually help young girls exercise those critical capabilities. By comparing and contrasting Bella with the likes of Lyra Belacqua of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy by Phillip Pullman (talk about an epic, ill-fated romance!) or, Winnie Forster from Tuck Everlasting, another young woman facing the choice between the life she knew and immortality, I think parents, librarians or anyone putting a book in girls’ hands would find a much more productive access point to the discussion around feminism, role models, etc. than, say, just saying no to Bella. Ypulse readers?

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