Sunday, January 28, 2007

new list - our favorite tough, selfish, mean, even downright rotten kids!

Lady Schrapnell from So Many Books... and I are compiling a list of sometimes-hard-to-like-yet-somehow-still-loveable protagonists from children's books. Add your favorites! We are still working on the best name for the list, if you have a suggestion. I sort of like the classic simplicity of "Rotten Kids."

Girls
Mary - The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett - the first and best?
Dairine - "Young Wizards" series by Diane Duane
Eliza - Knight's Castle by Edward Eager
Harriet - Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
Belinda - Miss Happiness and Miss Flower; Little Plum by Rumer Godden
Rose - Permanent Rose by Hilary McKay
Christina - Flambards series by K.M. Peyton
Turtle - The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Maggie - Getting Something on Maggie Marmelstein by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat
Veronica Ganz - Veronica Ganz and others by Marilyn Sachs
Fran Ellen - The Bears' House by Marilyn Sachs
Nicole - A Pocket Full of Seeds by Marilyn Sachs
April - The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Amanda - The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Jessica - The Witches of Worm by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
Jane - The Painted Garden by Noel Streatfield - a very direct descendent of Mary!
Nicky - Tennis Shoes by Noel Streatfeild
Dicey - Tillerman series by Cynthia Voigt


Boys
Artemis - "Artemis Fowl" series by Eoin Colfer.
Edmund -The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
Bradley - There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom by Louis Sachar
Christopher - The Lives of christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones