The Cool Girls are Popular, Too

Over the weekend I published the list of 200 Cool Girls from Children's Literature. I'm happy to report that in addition to being cool (smart, brave, strong, and independent), the cool girls are also quite popular. Here are some new comments (since I last included links at the bottom of my Sunday Visits post, and mentioned Liz, Kelly, Finding Wonderland, The Lilting House, Michele, and Kate):

• At Farm School, Becky said: "I'm thinking I should print out a few copies of the list, one to tuck in our library bag and another near the computer for online interlibrary loans." Her Old Curmudgeon/Father also suggested an addition to the list: Julie of the Wolves.
• At Wands and Worlds, Sheila Ruth said of the cool girls list, "I think even Jen had no idea how big this would be; once she put out the call, suggestions came from far and wide." That's certainly true!
• At Camp Wacky Homeschool, Heidi expressed her appreciation of Turtle.
• At Sprite Writes, Sprite said that she has never even heard of Turtle.
• Kathryn at Suitable for Mixed Company found out about the list from Melissa Wiley, who recently coined the term Kidlitosphere (corrected to fix typo - thanks Kathryn!).
• Mary Pearson (author of A Room on Lorelei Street, home of cool girl Zoe) was inspired by the cool girls list to start her own list of strong, real women. Make your suggestions here.
• Tanya Lee Stone (author of A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl) linked to the cool girls list, and added lots of great suggestions to Mary's strong women list.
• E. Lockhart (author of Fly on the Wall : How One Girl Saw Everything) linked to the cool girls list, and said that she knows 13 of the top 20.
• Chris Abouzeid expressed his pleasure at having his heroine, Ana from Anatopsis, part of the cool girls list. He also said some nice things about my blog on his links page.
• Cynthia Lord was also happy to see her cool girl, Catherine from Rules, included in the list. And, on an unrelated note, Cindy gets extra points from me for being a Red Sox fan.
• I also had an email from Grace M., who suggested two additional cool girls for the list: Henny (Henrietta) from All-of-a-kind Family and Jessie from The Boxcar Children. Clearly, both of these girls need to be added to the list.
• Susan S. emailed me offline, to point out a small error in the list (I had incorrectly attributed the author to Little Plum, confusing Ed Young's book with the correct book by Rumer Godden).
• I also had a number of wonderful comments on the cool girls combined list post. One that I especially wanted to mention here was from Zdena M., who said "This is an excellent list! Every teacher, librarian and parent should have it taped up for all to see and use." Wouldn't that be great? My thanks also to Little Willow, Sally, Nancy, and Kathleen, and to all of the earlier commenters and contributors to the list. And if I missed you, please drop me a note to let me know.

Thanks again to everyone who has supported and encouraged the cool girls list! The popularity of the cool girls has been beyond my wildest expectations. But it's pretty cool...

Comments

[Susan]

Jen, what fun! You were clearly onto something!

[Little Willow]

All-of-a-Kind Family is FANTASTIC. Every single family member has his or her own personality, and they have different interactions with each other, like the littlest sharing penny candy at night, like all of them loving books...

[Kathryn Judson]

Thanks for the link! (One small correction, though. Melissa coined the word kidlitosphere. You've got a typo on the third letter...)

[Jen Robinson]

I need to re-read All of a Kind family. I know that I loved it as a kid, but I remember nothing except for a vague sense of a homey NY apartment.

And thanks for the typo correction, Kathryn. It's fixed!