Schoolgirls, sleuths...

I've been cross about this book lately. I'm still reading it, but it's strange and pointless - especially because the subject matter (girls' series books from the U.S.) is of great interest to me. The author doesn't seem to have an argument, unless it's that most series books for girls are socially conservative and have a great number of well-off white girls in them. That's not an argument.
Also, she makes mistakes that drive me crazy. She misses the point of some series (Jane Allen isn't really a series about an athlete, though there is a lot of basketball - her place on the team is a metaphor for her moral excellence), and spreads the Victorian era over too wide a period (she counts books written in the 1830s as Victorian, but also calls books Victorian that are written well after 1901, because she believes the author still had a Victorian mindset. Sorry, but it can't be done both ways).
She over-emphasizes some series (Sweet Valley High) at the expense of others (Baby-Sitters Club, Cheerleaders, Canby Hall) that would have weakened her point about series focusing on well-off white girls. She makes the irritating, and increasing prevalent mistake of referring to Blair and Serena as Gossip Girls. I'm telling you, it's time for me to start that revolution.
It's just such a waste. The book just summarizes series, without much substantive analysis. It's possible that I wouldn't have written the book better, but it wouldn't have been worse either.

Meg Cabot and Center Stage!

It's lame to have a blog post that's just a link to another blog post, but here you go - a link to a post on Meg Cabot's blog, in which she waxes enthusiastic about dance, especially Center Stage, though she mentions Ballet Shoes and the re-make of Fame, too.