Women's History Month: juvenile fiction

Newsgirl by Liza Ketchum

In Newsgirl, Liza Ketchum delivers that rarest of birds: a strong, plucky, stubborn, enterprising, headstrong, brave, likable, and above all believable female protagonist in twelve year old Amelia Forrester.  Fresh off a steamship from Panama, Amelia, her mother Sophie, and Sophie's partner Estelle Duprey have taken a chance at starting a new life in the rough and tumble setting of gold rush era San Francisco.  Sophie and Estelle have high hopes for their future as businesswomen in a city where the men vastly outnumber the women -- they have talent, they have a plan, and they will make things work.  Amelia's greatest hope is that the whispers and the horrible nickname that followed her around school in Boston have been left behind for good.

After putting most of their savings toward passage to San Francisco, the Forrester-Duprey family needs to keep a tight hold on every coin they have until their fledgling business begins to turn a profit.  Eternally curious Amelia notices when they disembark that a ragged looking group of boys seem to be earning top dollar for newspapers from Boston that are months old.  She immediately decides that the best way for her to contribute to her family's financial wellbeing is to start selling newspapers herself, but even with her mother's grudging approval, she runs into a major stumbling block: girls can't sell newspapers -- at least, not if the boys from the dock have any say in the matter.  Out of desperation, she takes a pocketknife to her hair in an impulsive move to convince Julius and Nico, the ringleaders of the newspaper boys, to take her on, and Estelle sees to it that she's properly kitted out with boy's clothing when she finds out Amelia's motives behind her drastic act.  Thus disguised, "Emile Duprey" enters the lucrative newspaper business.

Her career barely has time to start before she's quite literally launched in a new direction when she and her young friend Patrick decide to investigate an aeronaut's exhibition of his hot air balloon.  After being invited to provide ballast in the basket while the aeronaut readies the balloon for launch, things go awry, and she and Patrick soon find themselves stranded in the gold fields of northern California.  Separated from her family and adrift in a world where competency is prized above strict adherence to gender roles, Amelia realizes that it's time for her to be true to herself, and decides that if she makes it back home to her mother and Estelle, she'll work in the newspaper business on her own terms -- and under her own name.

While Newsgirl is not without its flaws -- it seems a little fuzzy on exactly when the climax of the story takes place, leading the last fourth of the book to feel alternately rushed and sluggish in places -- Ketchum's strength lies with her strong and fully developed female characters.  She draws the relationships between Amelia and her mother, Amelia and Estelle, and Estelle and Sophie with care and true affection for her characters.  Although the hardships of their new life take their toll on Sophie's relationship with Amelia, their disagreements don't diminish the strength of their bond.  And though Amelia is almost paralyzed by her fear of being recognized as and labeled a bastard for her lack of a father, it doesn't detract from her love for Estelle -- and the scene in which Amelia claims Estelle as her mother is perhaps the most touching one in the entire book.  Their unconventional family provides unconditional support for one another through thick and thin.

Set in a period of time when women lacked suffrage and many other rights, Newsgirl is about one small family of women generously endowed with a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality. Even in this day and age, when we can take it for granted that girls can sell newspapers and women can own their own businesses, it is still an excellent book for a young girl to read as she sets off on her own journey to discover her inner brave, stubborn, enterprising, strong, plucky, headstrong, likable self.