This is not an original post.  I stole it from our family blog, but that's OK because I wrote it in the first place and it's worth repeating here.  I did add the still of Margot from the film version of All Summer in a Day, because that's the only one of these girls with an easily accessible canonical representation.

You might wonder why I didn't include some of the obvious ones like Hermione Granger. Yes, Hermione ranks as one of the three contenders for the bravest character in the Harry Potter series (alongside, in my book, Harry himself and Severus Snape), but unless you've been living on the moon for the last couple of decades, you could in no way convince me you haven't heard of her.

Those of you who have known me for a long time -- Janelle for example? -- understand how it was the Girl Scouts that turned me into a feminist and a girl empowerment advocate. Let's not delve into social psychology right now to explain how it all works, but there is a tendency for girls growing up strong and confident to run headlong into early adolescence only to crash and burn. When I see one hit that crucial stage in life with the attitude, "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" and plunge on through with themselves intact, displaying the compassion, courage, loyalty, and confidence (ignoring dozens of other positive traits) that make up heroes, I just want to stand up and cheer.

Perhaps that is why I take note of them in literature when I run across them, and why I find many of them among the most memorable characters. The prototype is probably Jean Louise "Scout" Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Admittedly, she hadn't quite reached early adolescence yet, but it was a coming of age experience nonetheless. I think she was eight when she stood down a lynch mob. My kind of girl. However this is about girls in science fiction and fantasy, who often have the chance to show courage in situations most of us will never experience. So, here are my top ten. Beware of the potential for spoilers.

10. Margot - All Summer in a Day

No traipsing across the galaxy in this Ray Bradbury story, no aliens, no giant robots. Margot, having recently moved from Earth to Venus, is the only child in school who can remember the sun. Out of jealousy, a boy locks her in a closet, where she was left, forgotten, at the moment when the sun, after seven long years, finally came out and the flowers bloomed. Not until it was over and the rain returned, did the children remember her and let her out. The Wonderworks production is a little more rewarding than the actual short story, for one of her first acts upon getting out was to forgive the boy who locked her in. Emotional courage counts, too.

9. Madeline "Meg" Murry - A Wrinkle in Time

By Madeleine L'Engle, this is an excellent adventure, nominally a Christian allegory, though I have some issues with the ultra-liberal theology. Through an unexpected turn of events, Meg, her brother Charles, and her soon-to-be boyfriend Calvin embark on an adventure across the universe to find her father, who had mysteriously disappeared months before. They encounter an evil more hideous than any of them could have imagined. Meg and Calvin barely escape with her father and their lives, but at the expense of Charles, who, because of power of his own, was seduced by the evil. Unwilling to abandon him, she once again uses the Tesseract to return -- alone -- to bring him back.

8. Kira - Gathering Blue

In this memorable novel by Lois Lowry, Kira is an orphan, lame, in a dystopian future, whose personal future would probably be to starve were it not for her exceptional talent at embroidery. She stumbles upon the post of maintaining the robe that holds her community's history, which allows her to begin unlocking the terrible secrets that history conceals. At long last, she sets off on a perilous trek through the mysterious and forbidden forest to unlock the last of the puzzle -- and to gather blue.

7. Lyra Belacqua - The Golden Compass

OK, you might have heard of this one; I'm taking that risk. I'm not a real big fan of Philip Pullmans' His Dark Materials trilogy. The Golden Compass is great, The Subtle Knife is OK, but The Amber Spyglass might as well remain on the shelf. Among other things, it is the only piece of fiction I have ever encountered that evokes deus ex machina to ruin an ending. What an accomplishment! But Lyra, on the other hand, is awesome. When she learns that two of her best friends have been snatched away by the Gobblers, she escapes from her gilded cage and embarks on a dangerous and pretty much hopeless journey to the arctic wastes of the far north to track them down and bring them home, a journey which takes her to parallel universes and ultimately beyond the grave.

6. Khira - Darkchild

An unusual yarn by Sydney J. Van Scyoc places Khira as the only person awake in the castle as the others sleep out the winter. As the last surviving daughter, she is destined -- assuming she survives -- to take the throne and to assume the power over nature to control the seasons. From out of nowhere arrives a boy, strange and helpless. As events begin to reveal that he is a biologically and mentally, though unwilling, programmed spy sent by a technologically advanced world who takes the resources of planets like hers and sells them to the highest bidder, she departs from tradition to protect him and to take on the otherworldly enemy.

5. Nestamay - To Conquer Chaos

In this, the only novel I've read by John Brunner that I actually like, Nestamay is a girl on the edge of womanhood, a critical member of a tiny society guarding an ancient device of great power. She is destined to marry a boy she can't stand, as their union is the best chance for a future given their diminishing gene pool. She goes on no great adventures, but she stands her ground, never loses sight of herself, and fearlessly reaches out to the unknown, even as she is called upon to reunite humanity across the great interstellar gulfs.

4. Raederle of An - Heir of Sea and Fire

Heir of Sea and Fire is the the second installment of Patricia McKillip's epic fantasy trilogy published under sundry names, such as The Riddle of Stars and The Riddlemaster Trilogy. I have to say this first: I've read a lot of fantasy, but this is the only series that I can put in the same class as Lord of the Rings. In some ways, I like it better. That said, back to Raederle. She is betrothed to the protagonist Morgon. He is in quite a fix, it seems, and Raederle has no qualms about leaving the comfort and safety of her palace to secure his way as he flees from the evil Ghisteslwchlom and pursues the traitor Deth. Let's face it, any girl who faces down an army of wraiths by bargaining with their leader for the return of his skull definitely has my vote. Raederle is technically too old to count as a "young girl" physically, but having been a sheltered princess who steps up to the plate as she does, I just can't leave her out.

3. Mia Havero - Rite of Passage

We're getting down to the wire here, and Mia is a work of art, as is Rite of Passage, a must-read Hugo winner by Alexei Panshin. Mia was born on one of the giant asteroid starships and as all children approaching adolescence, must participate in The Trial: to take her chances on the surface of a planet to either live or die, as a means of population control. Unlike everyone else who has grown up with that set of rules, she questions what is right and wrong. Not only does she accept the trial with all the courage and resourcefulness we would expect from a hero, when upon her return her people vote to destroy the world that had intentionally tried to kill their children, she takes it upon herself to challenge the whole structure of her society.

2. Tristan of Hed - Heir of Sea and Fire

Yes, a second character from this book; there are so many strong girls here -- Lyra and her teenaged cadre of Herun guards didn't even make the list. Although Tristan, Morgon's younger sister and Raederle's future sister-in-law, appears in the first volume of the trilogy, it is in the second that she really shines. She is 12 (maybe 13 by now; some time has passed), when the land rule has passed from Morgon to Eliard, which means Morgon must be dead. Not satisfied with not knowing, she boldly steals a rowboat and makes for the mainland from their tiny island kingdom of Hed, determined to travel all the way to Erlenstar mountain and the home of the High One himself to demand why. Tristan outranks Raederle in this list simply because she shows her mettle at a younger age.

1. Patricia Wynant "Peewee" Reisfeld - Have Space Suit - Will Travel

Here she is. My all-time favorite, in what is certainly my all-time favorite of Robert Heinlein's novels. Eleven years old (almost 12 -- ask her!), with the intellect of a Rhodes Scholar and the emotional maturity of a six-year-old. That alone makes her interesting, calculating orbital mechanics in her head while clinging to her rag doll Madame Pompadour. But add that the protagonist meets her right after she has stolen an alien spacecraft and drawn him into her adventure, which includes an escape across the moon, abduction to Pluto as hostages of said alien, and eventually seeing the galaxy from the outside.  This all makes her part of a wild ride you can never forget. During this time, despite a propensity for cockiness, she shows more courage, loyalty, honesty, compassion, self-sacrifice, love, and even unexpected humility than most of the great heroes through all of literature. She ends up being part of what makes the human race worth saving. You can't help but love her unless you have Dick Cheney's old heart.

So there they are. Girls who approached adolescence not as victims but as victors. They warm my heart, and allow me a vision of a better world. They are girls I want my own daughters to get to know and perchance emulate. This list, of course, is subject to revision as I read more, but some of these girls have held their special places for four decades, so they are unlikely to be displaced too easily. And there are so many strong young women who come to mind - Eilonwy, Amberle, Arwen (OK, she's an elf, not technically young), Ai, Wren, Moon, the indomitable Matty Roh, and -- heck! -- that woman who had to drag her two kids along on her quest -- what was her name? -- but they're beyond the stage of "young girl" without particular justification, as in the case of Raederle, for inclusion.

If you can think of any more, feel free to share.