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osprey_archerNormally I don't like to pick favorites, but sometimes the evidence is simply so overwhelming as to make favorites inevitable. In this case: Felicity is the best American Girl.
Item the first: She steals a horse. And not only does she steal it, but she sneaks out for a month beforehand to train it to be ridden. Dedication!
Item the second: She has one of the most satisfying best friend stories out of the American Girl series. The friends you have when you’re nine are not necessarily people who will be good friends when you’re older, but Elizabeth and Felicity have enough in common that I think they could go the difference. But they also make good foils for each other: Elizabeth shows Felicity how to be more thoughtful, while Felicity helps Elizabeth stand up for herself.
Also, Elizabeth is memorable. The American Girls themselves are always vivid, but the supporting characters are a bit more hit and miss. (Who remembers Molly’s best friends, for instance? There’s a reason Molly’s best friend doll is Emily, their British boarder: she’s much more interesting than Molly’s American friends, whose names I forget.)
The fact that their friendship effectively dramatizes the social tensions of the revolution helps make her memorable, of course. Elizabeth’s family are Loyalists and Felicity’s, Patriots (aside from Felicity’s grandfather), and these differing loyalties insistently try to tug them apart; but their friendship is strong enough to survive.
Item the third: Felicity’s series also has the best future romance candidate.
In fact, I would argue that Felicity’s series is the only one with a good future romance candidate. (Which makes perfect sense. How many people meet their spouse when they’re nine, anyway?) There are crazy people who think Samantha and Eddie Rylant will make a match - as if! But I’ll discuss this more when I come to the Samantha books.
Ben and Felicity, though? They’re both fiery and stubborn, but not so stubborn that they let their ideals cause needless pain to people that they love. And they keep each other’s secrets! The only problem is that they are so perfectly suited, not only in temperament but also on the social scale, that their parents might just marry them off to each other. Which is so undramatic! Clearly I must come up with a good reason for them to part, so they can meet again in 1787 to argue about the Federalist papers during the minuet. If people still minueted in 1787?
Item the fourth: Felicity’s family. It occurs to me that I could just sum this all up as “The Felicity books have the best characters, okay?”
But it would have been easy to make villains of Felicity’s Loyalist grandfather, or Felicity’s mother who is always trying to get her to be more ladylike, and instead the books show that they are doing the best that they know how, even if they may be wrong. Both characters are mentors for Felicity.
The American Girl series generally have wise and thoughtful families (though sometimes outside adults are evil: c.f. Jiggy Nye, the man whose abuse of his horse led Felicity into horse-thievery). Doubtless this is part of why they have a reputation for wholesomeness.
Item the fifth: She’s a redhead. QED.
Item the first: She steals a horse. And not only does she steal it, but she sneaks out for a month beforehand to train it to be ridden. Dedication!
Item the second: She has one of the most satisfying best friend stories out of the American Girl series. The friends you have when you’re nine are not necessarily people who will be good friends when you’re older, but Elizabeth and Felicity have enough in common that I think they could go the difference. But they also make good foils for each other: Elizabeth shows Felicity how to be more thoughtful, while Felicity helps Elizabeth stand up for herself.
Also, Elizabeth is memorable. The American Girls themselves are always vivid, but the supporting characters are a bit more hit and miss. (Who remembers Molly’s best friends, for instance? There’s a reason Molly’s best friend doll is Emily, their British boarder: she’s much more interesting than Molly’s American friends, whose names I forget.)
The fact that their friendship effectively dramatizes the social tensions of the revolution helps make her memorable, of course. Elizabeth’s family are Loyalists and Felicity’s, Patriots (aside from Felicity’s grandfather), and these differing loyalties insistently try to tug them apart; but their friendship is strong enough to survive.
Item the third: Felicity’s series also has the best future romance candidate.
In fact, I would argue that Felicity’s series is the only one with a good future romance candidate. (Which makes perfect sense. How many people meet their spouse when they’re nine, anyway?) There are crazy people who think Samantha and Eddie Rylant will make a match - as if! But I’ll discuss this more when I come to the Samantha books.
Ben and Felicity, though? They’re both fiery and stubborn, but not so stubborn that they let their ideals cause needless pain to people that they love. And they keep each other’s secrets! The only problem is that they are so perfectly suited, not only in temperament but also on the social scale, that their parents might just marry them off to each other. Which is so undramatic! Clearly I must come up with a good reason for them to part, so they can meet again in 1787 to argue about the Federalist papers during the minuet. If people still minueted in 1787?
Item the fourth: Felicity’s family. It occurs to me that I could just sum this all up as “The Felicity books have the best characters, okay?”
But it would have been easy to make villains of Felicity’s Loyalist grandfather, or Felicity’s mother who is always trying to get her to be more ladylike, and instead the books show that they are doing the best that they know how, even if they may be wrong. Both characters are mentors for Felicity.
The American Girl series generally have wise and thoughtful families (though sometimes outside adults are evil: c.f. Jiggy Nye, the man whose abuse of his horse led Felicity into horse-thievery). Doubtless this is part of why they have a reputation for wholesomeness.
Item the fifth: She’s a redhead. QED.
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Date: 2012-11-25 02:27 pm (UTC)And I tracked down that other book! It is simply titled 1787, and it's by Joan Anderson, if you're ever curious. There's a little bit of romance in that one, too, from what I remember (in that the main character has something of a girlfriend), but what I most remember is the CONSTITUTIONAL DRAMA, so I'm pretty sure the romance takes a back seat to the main plot.
Please do! There are never enough posts about children's books in the world.
I might just! I've been toying around with the idea of setting up a "review blog" or sorts, specifically for books and movies and whatever other media.
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Date: 2012-11-25 02:43 pm (UTC)