A new installment of Colleen Mondor’s What a Girl Wants discussion series went live today at Chasing Ray, and its all about the decline of the girl detective novel: does it hurt girls not to have the teen girl detective in the 21st century? what does it say about us that she is largely gone? You can–and should!–read the entire post here. I’ll paste my thoughts below; I hope they’ll entice you to wander over and join the discussion.
I adored Nancy as a kid. It wasn’t the mysteries so much as the undeniable fact that she was different. She wasn’t interested in the sorts of things that most teenaged girls were interested in: boys and how to attract them. No, Nancy was more interested in uncovering the truth, most especially when there were people trying to hide it. Looking back, Nancy’s appeal for me is all wrapped up in this idea that she was different, that she knew it, and that she didn’t worry about it. Because I was different, and I knew it … and I worried about it endlessly.
I guess what I am saying is that I don’t think today’s girls need a girl detective so much as they need a girl—any girl—who is strong and capable (e.g. different!) and who gets on with life anyway. And there are female protagonists who fit this bill; they just don’t happen to be detectives.
As a writer whose passion is science and nature, I’d be remiss if I didn’t at least point out that one incarnation of the girl detective in our age is the female scientist. And although there are lots of nonfiction books available for teen girls about women who grew up to be scientists, I can’t think of many contemporary novels with scientifically-bent heroines: Meg Murry (A WRINKLE IN TIME), Dewey Kerrigan (THE GREEN GLASS SEA), Hermione Granger (HARRY POTTER series) … who else?