In Praise of Resourceful Girls

If you’ve been hanging out with us this week here at Emu’s Debuts you’ve heard a lot about Andrea Wang’s THE NIAN MONSTER and her spunky resourceful main character, Xingling. To continue the launch week celebration I asked Emu’s to talk about our favorite resourceful girls – real or imagined.

Christina Uss thought of SALLY JEAN THE BICYCLE QUEEN from author Cari Best. Christina says “She has the best can-best can-do attitude of picture book girls I know and love. When faced with the need for a bicycle that fits her properly without any money to get one, she uses her brain and her hands to get the job done!” Christina also loves one of my personal favorites – Hilary Knight’s ELOISE. “That six-year-old girl’s imagination means she’ll never be at a loss for excitement and adventure anywhere she goes.” I agree. When I was a kid ELOISE was serious a role model for me.

Christina was also moved to submit for our consideration Hillary Clinton growing up in Chicago in the first chapter of Cynthia Levinson’s DO ALL THE GOOD YOU CAN. Christina read this to her son and he said, “I like how Hillary doesn’t wait for a better time to do something, she jumps right in and does things that need doing right away.” Smart kid.

Jason Gallaher says” Great gillyweed, this may be the hardest question we’ve ever been asked on Emu’s Debuts. There are so many resourceful girls out there that I love! But I will say my favorite from recent reads is Alice in Tahereh Mafi’s FURTHERMORE. First of all, she’s hilarious. She has this dry sort of wit that reeeeeeally cracks me up. Second of all, she’s working to find her father in a dimension consisting of a gazillion worlds with different rules that she doesn’t know, yet keeps on going anyway. This girl rocks! Plus, she is a snazzy dresser who includes bangles in her wardrobe. Love her!” And if you know Jason you know he’s a great judge of hilarious and fashion.

Finally Andrea weighed in on this question herself – maybe giving us a hint about her inspiration. “I read I AM MALALA a couple of years ago and was just blown away by Malala Yousafzai. She started speaking out and fighting for girls’ rights to education when she was just a young teen. She found ways to keep learning even when her school was closed, and ways to keep speaking out even though her life was in danger. She has such inner strength!”

We are all so excited to see THE NIAN MONSTER make its way into the hearts and dreams of kids and for Xingling to join the ranks of resourceful girls we all love to talk about!

As an added treat if you  leave a comment on this post (or any EMUs Debuts post this week) you’ll be entered into a giveaway for THE NIAN MONSTER.

Darcey Rosenblatt’s debut novel will be published by Henry Holt/MacMillan in August 2017. LOST BOYS, an historic fiction, tells the story of a 12-year old Iranian boy sent to fight in the Iran Iraq war in 1982. With her critique group she runs the Better Books Workshop – an annual small deep craft conference held in Northern California. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her fabulous husband and perfect daughter, some fish, and the best dog in the world. By day she is an environmental planner and when time permits she paints and costumes for a 5-8 year old theater.