Top Five Sunday: Best Books Featuring Children

This is a weekly meme hosted by the lovely Larissa at Larissas Life.

The theme for today was:

Best Books Featuring Children

I modified it-

                           Female

Best Books Featuring ^ Children Heroines

 Matilda is a very sweet kid who enjoys books and loves to learn. Her favorite author is Charles Dickens and her favorite book is Moby Dick.

Roald Dahl often said that the key to his success as a children's writer was to conspire with children against adults. "It's not the path to their affections," he said, in an interview with a British newspaper in 1990. "It may be simplistic, but it is the way. Parents and school teachers are the enemy.  The adult is the enemy of the child because of the awful process of civilizing this thing that when it is born is an animal with no manners, no moral sense at all."

In a way, we all have a bit of Matilda in all of us as children. Some of us continue to show more of it than others. As a child, I was very curious, wasn't very afraid of adults and was constantly pushing the boundaries of what I was learning.



At seven, Sara is pampered with the finest luxuries at her new boarding school by the request of her British officer father. She doesn't let her status consume her. I loved her because she is intelligent and good humored with a contagious  warmth that embraces even the lowliest of those she meets. Her upbeat personality perseveres in spit of her seemingly destitute surroundings. A nineteenth century Pollyanna.

Despite a brutal upbringing, Anne Shirley, an orphan, is mistakenly sent to live with a brother and sister on Prince Edward Island in Canada. The siblings are eventually won over by Anne's appetite for life. She is a dreamer whose fantasies land her in unusual predicaments that appall the local community.

Kindness, courage and relentless optimism can make for a bland read, but I fell in love with her spirit and her sense of adventure. I always spoke my mind and it usually got me in a LOT of hot water as a child, but it developed my voice and style of opinion. Anne always went after what she wanted and was never afraid to work for it. I seriously wanted to meet my own Gilbert Blythe. Her independent ideas and unfortunate predicaments kept me reading for the next eight books in the series.



 She is invaluable to her two other best friends, Ron and Harry, for her brains and uses her intelligence to get them all out of sorts of trouble. She is fiercely loyal at all costs and understands the meaning of friendship and justice. When we are first introduced to her, she is teased by classmates as having frizzy hair and big teeth and for being a "know-it-all." I know I identified with slight awkwardness and saw her grow as I grew into an intelligent young woman who isn't afraid of anything.

 I was intrigued by the true story of Mary Jemison who was kidnapped from her home at a young age and taken to live as a member of the Seneca Indian Tribe. Her struggle to learn the Indian ways taught me that it may be hard to learn in new surroundings but it's possible. I often wanted to be whisked away to different cultures and learn something out of the ordinary.

I can't wait to read everyone else's answers!