This month’s Ask-A-Wench feature emerged from a Wenchly discussion about favorite books and shows we loved as kids. We discovered some in common, and some unique to each. Did our childhood idols influence our novels later? Definitely! Here are our favorites – we’d love to know yours as well!
As a child, did you have favorite heroes or heroines from books, TV, or movies? Did they help shape your fictional characters when you grew up to write books?
Mary Jo here: As a kid, I would read anything available, but novels by preference. I don’t recall looking for heroic archetypes, but I always wanted the good guys to win. This turned out to be good preparation for writing romance. <G> I would read boys’ sports stories and science fiction novels like Robert Heinlein’s SF juveniles. But I also liked books with strong female leads: Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, and Trixie Belden, Girl Detective.
Sadly, my school library would only let me borrow two books a day and I usually finished those by supper time. This left me free to watch television in the evenings. Westerns were really big then, so Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy and more. (Maverick, yes!) Reading is a lifelong addiction. Ask me how I know!
Anne here. Growing up, I didn’t have TV, but I still managed to see quite a few shows at the homes of friends, and also on my grandmother’s TV. She wouldn’t let me watch “that dreadful horror show” (The Addams Family) but watching Robin Hood was quite acceptable, being “historical”. I loved Robin Hood. He was decent, honorable, loyal and smart and, as played by Richard Greene, he was also very handsome. It was filmed before I was born, but I watched an episode on YouTube recently and thought it still held up quite well. (Our version didn’t include advertising.)
As for heroes in books, I think most of mine were animals — especially Kiki the cockatoo in the Edid Blyton “Adventure” series who made me laugh. I did love Kim (Rudyard Kipling) and several others, but the animals always starred for me — The Call of the Wild (Jack London), many different horse books (eg The Silver Brumby series by Elyne Mitchell) and more.
The heroines? As other wenches have said, they were usually disappointingly passive, and did things like prepare picnics and do the washing up! (grr, Enid Blyton!) I had to wait until I was eleven when I began my lifelong readership of Georgette Heyer to discover heroines I could identify with — clever, bold, independent and nobody’s domestic helper.
As for them influencing my own characters, my heroes tend to be honorable and decent and my heroines tend to be somewhat independent, and though they might start out being under some unworthy man’s thumb, they pretty soon step out from under.
Pat says: I am dinosaur old. We only had two TV channels and one TV when I was growing up, and my younger brothers wanted cowboy shows. While I admired a young Clint Eastwood in Rawhide and had a thing for the youngest brother in Bonanza and truly loved James Garner in Maverick, I wouldn’t call them heroes. I never thought of them as such. I just admired the way Maverick’s self-deprecating humor worked as a weapon and thought the others were hunky. I obviously have a thing for square jaws.
I found my heroes and heroines in books. Our library was a bus ride downtown and I wasn’t allowed to go by myself, so I saved my allowance and bought the 99c drugstore books. Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Cherry Ames. . . Not entirely certain I considered them heroines, but I admired the daring and courage I lacked!
I have no idea how those childhood figures influenced my characters, except my guys do tend to have stern, carved cheekbones and square jaws. And heroines have their own agency and don’t need to be rescued, although partnering with someone on occasion is always fun.
Christina here. This topic brings back lots of lovely memories! There was only one channel on
TV when I was little and being a night owl, I was allowed to stay up late to watch shows on the weekends. (My brother was too but we all knew he’d fall asleep before the programmes even started ). I had several favourites – Batman, High Chaparral and The Saint especially. My brother and I both had Batman capes and tore around the house pretending to be him (neither of us wanted to be Robin so there were two Batmans instead). Sadly that cape is long gone and I don’t have any photos but I loved it!
High Chaparral was more grown-up and I was totally in love with Billy Blue. I mean – those eyes! It was exciting and so very different to the environment I’d grown up in. Even more exciting, however, was The Saint starring Roger Moore. He was also very handsome and always seemed to know exactly what to do in order to beat the bad guys in his own suave manner. What a hero!
I guess what all these programmes taught me was that heroes always fight for good against evil, they’re honourable, capable and kind. I try to make mine the same. As for the heroines, I agree with Nicola – not very inspiring back then and it wasn’t until I started reading Georgette Heyer that I found the sort of heroine I really liked: brave, assertive and intelligent.
Nicola says: The 1970s was a great time to grow up in the UK from my point of view because the TV had so many historical series for kids which provided me with a ready supply of heroes, if not heroines. A favourite TV series of mine was The Flashing Blade, which was actually French and very badly dubbed into English. It was set in the 17th century and the hero, the Chevalier de Recci, was a superb rider and swordsman; naturally he was clever and brave and very handsome (in my childish opinion.) From this programme I learned that historical heroes are loyal, courageous and quick-witted as well as being able to fight better than anyone else. Sadly, the heroine of The Flashing Blade (Isabelle) was utterly hopeless and no role model for anyone. She was spoiled, selfish, stupid, capricious and disloyal – she even betrayed the hero out of jealousy – which I thought was appalling. So, in an inverse way I suppose I learned the type of heroine I didn’t want to write. The theme music for that series was also very dashing and stays in the memory.
The problem with the heroines of a lot of books I read at that time was that they were at worst like Isabelle and at best rather passive creatures. They didn’t have much agency and didn’t do anything, just sat around whilst the action unfolded around them. It wasn’t until I read authors like Mary Stewart, when I was in my early teens, that I found the sort of heroines I could applaud, like Charity in Madam, Will You Talk and women who were clever, decisive and independent, had a strong sense of what was right and wrong, and would stick to their guns. What a relief it was to find them!
Andrea says: Even as a kid I was more of a reader than a TV person, but I did watch a number of the childhood favorites—Robin Hood, Hopalong Cassidy, Davy Crockett, Zorro . . . I didn’t think of them as heroes, I just really thought it was cool that they got to do such adventurous, exciting things. I had an older brother and of course wanted to copy all the activities that he liked to do, so that’s part of why I wasn’t at all interested in playing with dolls. But at heart, I think I was a total tomboy—I wanted to be outside, firing my cap guns and making up stories of doing noble deeds. There were no shows where women got to be leaders, so I just made it up as I went along—and took a lot of flak about why I wasn’t inside doing girly things like embroidering handkerchiefs or holding pretend tea parties. Luckily I had a very independent-minded mother who encouraged me to believe I could do anything I wanted to do.
It wasn’t until I read Mary Stewart’s The Moonspinners and This Rough Magic when I was around 13 or 14 that I finally discovered women were actually allowed to be smart and resourceful! I didn’t have to “hide” inside cowboy clothes. Books like Winnie the Pooh also left their mark on me—the elemental celebration of love and friendship inspires me to this day. The heroines I tend to write aren’t afraid to defy convention. They’re very strong, but also kind and compassionate. And they have a sense of humor. Because laughter is essential in navigating Life!
And Susan: Looking back, I idolized more than a few heroes and heroines from books, movies, and TV. When I was very little, I remember seeing Superman on TV (he of the baggy tights and mellow voice), and then I dreamed he picked me up and we flew around. I grew into a voracious reader, and if I liked it, I read it over and over again. One heroine I adored was Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking. She was bold, quirky, and hilarious; I was timid and tiny and wished I had that spunk. Later, I loved Jo March in Little Women (I too had three sisters and secretly wrote stories!). When I saw The Moon-Spinners with Hayley Mills and Peter McEnery on Disney, I saw a plucky heroine and a kind, intelligent, handsome hero, and I wanted more of that. Later (like some other Wenches!), I read every Mary Stewart novel I could find. Her independent heroines and reserved, understated heroes shaped and inspired characters I would later write.
And then there was Robin Hood. Like Anne, I also loved that loyal, strong, noble hero. I fell in love with Robin Hood early on with an
abridged version of Howard Pyle’s Merry Adventures, and my mother loved the Richard Greene program, so that trickled down to us. My own merry chase into the medieval era began with Robin Hood (I wrote a pseudo-medieval tale at age 12). By the time I first saw the fabulous Robin of Sherwood series, I was immersed in medieval studies at the university. Soon after, my first novel combined my love of the whole Robin Hood canon with my art history research. Now, my heroes and heroines are often medieval, and in any era, tend to reflect those early models, from Pippi to Robin – something I realized when I had to answer this question!
Your turn!
What heroes and heroines caught your heart and your imagination early on?
My first boyfriend (at age 5) was Superman. I wanted to be Lois Lane so badly. And I credit Robin Hood for my love of history. History seemed pretty boring to me until Richard Greene appeared on my TV screen in the form of Robin. I immediately dropped my crush on Superman. All kidding aside, it did stir up my interest in times past. What a fun post.
Susan, such good memories! I think it’s time I reread Mary Stewart’s Madam, Will You Talk?!
Mary Jo, Madam, Will You Talk? was my first Mary Stewart book and it’s still my favorite, even though I’ve read all her books. It’s always a good reread, too, IMO.
Anne, I’m rereading Madam, Will You Talk? right now. There are a lot of cigarettes, but it’s still a great story!
I know. It’s interesting isn’t it, to reflect on how cigarette smoking has virtually disappeared from out contemporary fiction and movies. In the 1950’s and 60’s I think they were supposed to be an indicator of sophistication, especially in women.
And I’ve read that in mid-century movies, cigarette companies paid to encourage on-screen smoking. Apparently when a screen character lit up, half the cinema audience did too. I’m so glad cinemas and theatres etc are non-smoking these days.
We didn’t get a television set until I was 12, so my youthful heroes came from books—Robin Hood above all others— and movies—I adored swashbucklers, and still thrill to the sight of a ship under sail. On the radio there was the Lone Ranger and all the others fighting the forces of evil—The Shadow, The Fat Man, Nick Carter Master Detective, The FBI in Peace and War. Incidentally, the Lone Ranger never shot the bad guys, he only shot the gun out of their hand. I was fairly grown up before I realized this was not easy to do!
But mostly what they taught me was that everyone was supposed to resist injustice of all sorts.
The Lone Ranger probably had tech support to help with his shooting, but it’s still pretty cool.
Resisting injustice is always a worthy cause.
This a lovely thought. Like others, I read Cherry Ames and Nancy Drew, also Hardy Boys. But what I saved my allowance for was Rick Brant science adventures, $1.25 at the local Jelleffs department store in Shirlington, Arlington, Va. now Ballston Metro. This was the 1950s version of Tom Swift and was about a teenager boy living in a research group on a island off the Jersey coast. Things done were communications rocket to the moon, submarines, robots exploring caves and other scientific adventures. I remember in fourth grade falling for Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books. I was overseas in Tokyo Japan and it was in my elementary school library when I was in fourth grade. As middle school student I became interested in adventure? I read Kon-Tiki, sailing across the Pacific in a raft and Richard Halliburton who swam the pool at the Taj Mahal.
I still have a taste for science as I was recently reading Iniquus by Fionna Quinn. The tropes are pretty obvious but the science!! I am gobbling them up to figure out what special forces teams are using for science!
Great memories all!
What a fun post, so thank you all!
I was a voracious reader and read anything and everything that stayed still long enough. Television was a rare treat when I was growing up in Australia; it wasn’t until we moved to Guam that I watched more regularly. I certainly read my fair share of Cherry Ames, Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, and much more. I suspect that every book’s hero/heroine was a favorite at that moment!
We readers CRAVE good heroes and heroines who take us along on their adventures!
Omigosh- I’m completely thrown half off topic by that picture of Michael Praed as Robin of Sherwood. I was always a huge Robin Hood person- books, tv shows, movies – but he is my all time favorite Robin & Kip Carpenter’s retelling is still a bellwether for all the tales that have followed. His Marion was such a strong character as well which was a plus for me. I also love the King Arthur legend & all the stories surrounding it. Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden, the Hardy Boys & Mary Stewart books (& movie) all still excite me.
Jeanne, a great story resonates forever! (And agreed: Michael Praed was the best Robin Hood ever.)
I probably still dream about him – lol!
Oh, the memories! When we finally had a television: Gunsmoke (Matt Dillon – big hero), Maverick, Rawhide, and any show having animals such as Fury, Lassie and Rin Tin Tin. Reading was my absolute favorite time: Again, animals: Big Red, Black Stallion series. I found Mary Stewart and read whatever I could find at the library of hers by the time I was twelve or thirteen and all of Anne of Green Gables series. Now retired and am in heaven reading all of your Word Wenches books along with all types of paranormal, fantasy, science fiction, regular fiction and do not get me started on the In Death series by JD Robb. Great blog, great article. Thank you for adding so much to my world.
Melissa, you’re very welcome! We are all story lovers together. (And yes on the animal heroes: The Black Stallion….!)
Oh yes, I read all the Black Stallion booksand Margurite Henry horse booksq and other animal heroes and watched Fury, my friend Flicka (tv series), Lassie, Rin Tin Tin and loved the horses in the Westernslkke Trigger and Silver. I was nutty on horses(and still am!).
Oh and there were two other wonderful animal series, Lad: a dog and the Blaze horse series.
When we lived in England, I was very young, but every Saturday morning my brother and I watched Batman and Robin. I was hooked and have a life long love of the character.
When we moved to Ireland we had no electricity for a number of years so no tv. I was always a voracious reader but there was no library near where I lived. So if I was loaned books I read and read and read them. I lived through Enid Blyton’s books but didn’t find anything wrong with them. As you can see from above Ireland was very backward at this time and the way women were portrayed in these novels was actually how we lived.
The first time I saw Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood I was in love!!! I have watched that so many times and he has always remained the epitome of that character for me
A wonderful interesting post!!
No electricity! No library! Thank heaven you managed to find books. I was lucky that my school had a pretty good library.
When I was in elementary school my class would go to the school library once a week. At that time there was a series of books that were biographies of famous people. I wish I could remember the name of the series but just remember calling them the blue biography books. I devoured every female biography and learned about Clara Barton, Jane Addams, Florence Nightengale, and so many others. Not at all interested in reading the male biographies because it seemed as though we learned about all those men in class. Moved on to Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames and read my brother’s Tom Swift and Hardy Boys. At age 12 reading Mary Stewart’s The Moonspinners and The Diary of Anne Frank was life changing. My mom turned me on to Delderfield and Georgette Heyer. So grateful for all of these books because I truly believe they helped form my attitudes for today.
Linda, I remember those youthful biographies of famous people. I read the ones about men as well as women because more reading material. Your mom had good taste in her recommendations!
The old movies I remember watching over and over again on TV as a child were Robin Hood, the Errol Flynn version, which still holds up! And embarrassingly, the Tarzan movies with Johnny Weissmuller. They’re quite dated now, but swimming was my best sport, and he was a great swimmer. Luckily my brother also enjoyed these same movies so there was no dispute over what to watch. I was never much into series books when I was younger, but I remember reading a lot of Lois Lenski, and she had some great heroines like Caddie Woodlawn.
Karin. Johnny Weissmuller was a champion swimmer and very fun to watch! I’m not familiar with Lois Lenski, unfortunately.
Loved the Tarzan movies and whenever they come on TV I try to watch them! I also ave all of the Original books by ER Burroughs which were great fun to read! I always wished i could swing through the jungle as he did. I got a lot ofteasing in College because my name is Jane. 😊
Having three brothers, Westerns were a staple in my house. It wasn’t until I grew up that I realized that most were set in the Victorian era. Robin Hood in all of his incarnations seems to be a common denominator for most of us, as well as classics such as Lassie.
As for reading, I read all of Louisa May Alcott’s books and all of the “Little House on the Prairie” books. I fell in love with the books of Gladys Malvern, such as “Behold Your Queen” about Biblical Esther, and”The Foreigner,” the story of the Bible’s Ruth. The author was a prolific writer for a YA audience, concentrating on bold historical females. Another book that I read over and over again was “Celia Garth,” by Gwen Bristow, set in South Carolina during the American Revolution. Also set during the Revolutionary War, and a much beloved book, was “The Sherwood Ring,” by Elizabeth Marie Pope. I have always hoped that some film production company would make these last two books into movies to honor the USA’s milestone birthdays.
After having borrowed all of the aforementioned books from the library, I simply had to have my own copies, so that is how my gift money was spent as a child. Obviously, I still purchase many books today. I have several hundred on my Kindle! I still have all of my favorite books from childhood in my possession, so my daughter had the joy of reading them, too.
Patricia, I remember Celia Garth very well. (“You can smile at people you hate.”) I read a lot of juvenile science fiction also, though those stories had a sad lack of female characters.
Omg….the Sherwood Ring! That takes me back, I loved that book and took it out of the library often! The other series i read to death was the Williamsburg series by Elswyth Thane. Like you, I took the out kf the library so often I asked them for gifts for birthdays and holidays! I still dip into the Thane books, ut nkw I shall have to find the Sherwood ring a d dip intk that too!
Seeing a shout out to Michael Praed’s Robin of Sherwood tickled me. I loved that show and Highlander. Robin Hood was also a literary favorite. Two favorite retellings of the tale were by Robin McKinley and Jennifer Roberson. Those novels led me to other works by them, with strong female characters, including The Blue Sword and The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley, as well as her retellings of classic fairy tales. I enjoyed Jennifer Robertson’s Lady of the Glen. Books that I read over and over were the Anne of Green Gables series (and almost everything LM Montgomery ever wrote), Island of the Blue Dolphins, the Little House series and Mara, Daughter of the Nile (I recently found it again packed away in a bin to my great joy…I had thought it lost). This conversation has certainly taken me down memory lane.
I too love those Jennifer Roberson & Robin McKinley books!
You all took me back to my childhood and teen years. Everyone mentioned something I either read or watched on TV. I remember when color TVs came into existence. We loved going to an aunt’s house on Bonanza night so we could watch it in color. As far as reading, I was one of those kids who just had to be reading something even if it was the cereal box. I got hooked on Sci-fi early on and read every Robert Heinlein wrote starting with Red Planet and Podkayne of Mars. I still have to have something to read handy. Thank goodness paperwhites were invented. As an adult when I traveled to conferences for work or went anywhere away from home, I would take no less than five books in my suitcase and one in my purse.
“… when I traveled …, I would take no less than five books in my suitcase and one in my purse.”
I hear you, Jan! The challenge would be trying to decide what I would be in the mood to read as I packed known favorites and new to me books. (Well that and being able to lift my suitcase!)
Oh yes, and lifting the suitcase was a real issue! I tried to take paperbacks, but not everything was in that format! The ine j was currently reading woukd go in my purse……
Jan–and this is why e-readers are such a blessing: so many books in one device!
What a fun, nostalgic post!
Among my heroes on Tv were Robin Hood, Zorro, sir lancelot, amd many westerns incl
Roy Rogers, hopalong Cassidy, wyatt earp, the cisco kid, and my all time favorite, the Lone Ranger. All of these series taught me courage, honesty, honor, resposibility, integrity a d other important values.(and kt didn’t hurt that they were gorgeous…..sigh) Many of them are in reruns now and hold up very well. My friends and I played Robin Hood a d made bows and arrows out of tree branches and string and I went on to pariticpate in archery in school and college. I had a fiberglass bow and wooden arrows. It was great fun. I also learned how to fence and joined the fencing team in college. Unfortunately the archery ranges near me closed down in my thirties so i had to give it up.
As for heroes in books, i was a viracious reader and practically burned up my library card every Saturday. Among my favorites (were and still are)the Scarlet Pimpernel, D’artangnan (3 Musketeers), the Count of Monte Cristo, Rudolf Rassendyl(prisoner of Zenda) and Scaramouche. I also read many of the books by GH Henty which a friend of mine,s father had a whole set from when he was growing up. Such funand such adventures. And then i discovered Heyer. My older sister was reading them when I was about 12 and while I wasn’t crazy about the romantic ones at that age, I did love the mystery a d adventure ones like These old Shades, the Corinthian , Convenient Marriage and The Talisman Ring. I was well a d truly hooked! Heroic, honorable, romantic, integrity, courageous, bold, kept their promises, etc. i wanted so much to be like the heroes in all of those books.
What was interesting js that my father was very much like my fictional heroes, so I had a real live model to follow(and be was handsome to boot as my mother was beautiful).My mother, though she died when I was seven was also cut from the same cloth. So it was easy for me to adore such characters in fiction a d also in history.
The Scarlet Pimpernel was recommended to me by my father when I was a teen, Jane A. It is a three generation book in my family as my daughter read it also. She so enjoyed it that she read the many sequels which I had not known existed.
Yes, i discovered the sequels many many years later and now have all of them.
They were also fun read and i enjoyed them. Also a three generation book as my father told me about it and when my niece was young we told her about it and she adored it and the sequels! I love it when that happens, don,t you?
The prisoner of zenda also had a sequel, but not as good.