ABSTRACT
I open this chapter on independent reading with an excerpt from an interview with Nikki because her words so aptly represent what many fear-that the regular consumption of narrative storylines that portray girls as victims serves to normalize this position as the most natural one for girls to inhabit. Many girls in the class chose to read series books by R.L.Stine or Christopher Pike whenever they had a chance to choose a book. Regularly, during independent reading, more than half the girls in the class were reading books by one of these two authors. In these books, females are often placed in precarious or dangerous situations, and although they might be involved in extricating themselves from these situations, the male characters ultimately save the day. That this scenario felt “normal” to Nikki would affirm Julia’s sense, conveyed to me in an interview, that adolescent novels (she named R.L.Stine novels in particular) seemed to reinforce power structures and position women in submissive ways.
