Dragonfly Song by Wendy Orr.
Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend.
Thisby Thestoop and the the Black Mountain by Zac Gorman.
The Turnaway Girls by Haley Chewin.
In Dragonfly Song, Aissa is “the cursed child who called the Bull King’s ship to the island.” Her fellow servants and townspeople say of her, “Spit the bad luck away when you see her; pinch or slap her to make her understand.” She’s called No Name because she’s mute, and no one even cares to know her real name.
In Nevermoor, Morrigan Crow is a cursed child, born on Eventide, blamed for all of the misfortunes and tragedies that occur anywhere in her neighborhood, and doomed to die on her eleventh birthday. She’s sure that she has no gift, no talent to set her apart, and no place or reason to hope for anything, especially not a place in the magical Wundrous Society.
Thisby Thestoop’s parents “traded her (at birth) for a bag of mostly unspoiled turnips”, and the wandering salesman to whom she was traded “dumped the baby at the foot of the Black Mountain.” She has no real name; the name Thisby Thestoop comes from the text of a note written by a minotaur with sloppy penmanship. “She wasn’t born particularly clever or brave. She couldn’t move like a shadow or shoot an arrow through the eye of a needle. And she most definitely wasn’t predestined to greatness through some divine prophecy or ‘Chosen One” hooey. No, Thisby Thestoop was astoundingly average.” Thisby is a friendless outcast and the lowliest of servants, a gamekeeper for monsters beneath the Black Mountain.
Delphernia in The Turnaway Girls is different, perhaps special in that she has a voice to sing, but also a friendless outcast, unable to make the golden shimmer that the othergirls can make. And she must hide her voice because turnaway girls are not allowed to make music. She says of herself, “I’m not a maker of anything. I am a worthless creature. A turnaway girl who cannot make shimmer. Mudworms do not envy me. I have riots in my heart each morning.”
I’m sensing a pattern here. All of these middle grade fantasies feature protagonists who are outcasts, cursed, the lowliest of the low. And all of the novels’ heroes are girls. These are almost Cinderella stories in which the lowly servant girl, mocked and cursed, turns out to be a brave and beautiful princess; except the girls in these stories never do completely come to self-actualization or a sense of belonging, not wholly. Perhaps Thisby comes the closest; by the end of the novel she knows her place and her work and is beginning to see her own strength and believe in her own future. She still doesn’t have parents or a real name, but she has made her own name, Thisby, known and admired by the end of the book.
Morrigan Crow learns that she is not a curse, but rather a blessing and gift by the end of the first volume in her story. Still, she isn’t sure that her gift itself isn’t a curse that will harm more than it will help. The resolution of that story is left for the sequel to The Trials of Morrigan Crow.
Aissa claims her own name, finds her voice, becomes a bull jumper, snake singer, and savior of her island. But by the end of her book, she’s still filled with anger for the mother who rejected her and jealousy for the sister who took her place, and fear of becoming once again the no-name girl, enslaved and cursed. She “now is ready to face her life”, but there’s enough doubt in the final poem at the end of the story to make the reader wonder if Aissa can keep all that she has gained.
Delphernia also finds her voice and her mother and freedom. She does become a sort of a princess by the end of the story, but her transformation, too, is not without its doubtfulness and difficult memories. Delphernia carries scars and in her head the voices of those who told her that she was worthless and doomed and outside the pale.
And so it goes. All of these cursed girls become Real Girls by the power of their own voices, developing their own identities and their own names. And if those identities, names and voices are a bit shaky and untested by the end of the book, maybe there’s another volume yet to come in which these formerly voiceless and nameless heroines can become even more self-assured and fearless. And that’s the message of these and other similar stories: you, too, reader, may feel outcast and alone and powerless, but you can be more. You can, even without having any special giftedness or any unique place or name or birthright, make yourself and create your own identity.
These books indicate that this self-actualization happens partly as a result of one or more other people believing in the seemingly powerless and cursed girl. I do think that’s a partial answer to the Cinderella problem. How does the outcast rise from the ashes? The Velveteen Rabbit became real because he was loved. But is the love of another imperfect human being enough to transform a cursed girl into a strong, courageous princess, or does the growth and change require some other kind of magic? Is my identity and my strength, my “girl power” there, simply waiting to be discovered, or does it derive from a source outside myself?
Interesting questions. One last thought: how many other books of middle grade fantasy that I read this year will feature this same theme of an outcast rising up and finding her voice?
More outcast, cursed, and bullied female protagonists:
A Problematic Paradox by Eliot Sappingfield. Sardonic misfit genius Nikola Kross is bullied in regular middle school and has trouble acclimating in a school for brilliant scientists like herself. Can Nikola actually make friends and at the same time find out who she truly is?
Peasprout Chen, Future Legend of Skate and Sword by Henry Lien. Peasprout Chen comes to the Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword from the foreign and hated land of Shin. She is looked down upon, disrespected, and friendless as she competes to become the top-ranking wu liu champion. Can Peasproout find her place at the Academy and in the land of Pearl?
Shadow Weaver by Marcy Kate Connolly. Emmeline, born with the magic of shadow weaving, is suspected, feared, and even hated by her family and by their servants. She has only one friend, her shadow Dar, who is herself a lost soul and a dark trickster shadow. Emmeline’s shadow weaving magic is her identity, but is it also her curse?
The Wizards of Once: Twice Magic by Cressida Cowell. Princess Wish is a poor Warrior girl, a bad speller, and she has magic, a capital offense among the Warriors. She’s banished to a cupboard by her scary mother, and her only friends are her cautious bodyguard and a spoon she accidentally brought to life. Cursed or gifted with iron magic, Wish is definitely one of the misfit girls of 2018. (Her fellow protagonist, Xar, is also a misfit among the Wizards. He has no magic, unlike all the other Wizards, but he does have friends.)
The Marvelous Adventures of Gwendolyn Gray by B.A. Williamson. Gwendolyn Gray is a dreamer with wild red hair in a city full of conformists and identical grey buildings and clouds. She’s cursed with an imagination, and again no friends, in a world of people who want her to be gray and dull and obedient.
R Is for Rebel by J. Anderson Coats. Mallianne Pirine Vinnio Aurelia Hesperus is a member of an outcast group of people, the Mileans, but even among her own people, imprisoned, Malley is different because of her rebellious, untamed spirit. She will not be reformed or reeducated or domesticated, and even the girls who are her fellow prisoners fear the trouble that Malley brings in her rebellious wake.
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These books may be nominated for a Cybils Award, but the views expressed here are strictly my own and do not reflect or determine the judging panel’s opinions.