Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by the Broke and the Bookish, posts a book-related topic every Tuesday for bloggers to share their top ten lists around.  I wasn’t even planning to participate this week, but I couldn’t resist today’s topic: Books about friendship!  Which I’ve slightly reinterpreted as my favorite book friendships…

1) The Little White Bird by J. M. Barrie – First on the list because it’s one of my very favorite books.  It centers on an unconventional friendship, between the kindly old gentleman (unnamed, so I like to call him that) and a little boy, David.  They each provide the key for the other into a world of wonder and magic (I mean that metaphorically, mostly…)  It’s pretty clearly autobiographical, about J. M. Barrie and the Davies boys.

2) The White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean – Another favorite and another unconventional friendship, considering Titus is Sym’s imaginary friend.  But it’s beautiful.

3) Anne of Green Gables, Emily of New Moon and Pat of Silver Bush by L. M. Montgomery – On one line because they’re all in the same mold.  Where would Anne be without Diana, Emily without Ilse, or Pat without Bets?

4) The Bruno and Boots series by Gordon Korman – A hilarious series of books, centering around roommates at boarding school.  Together, Bruno and Boots just can’t seem to avoid chaos, and they usually drag all of their other friends along.

5) Dragonsinger by Anne McCaffrey – Second book in the Masterharper of Pern series, lonely Menolly sets down at the Harper Hall, and for the first time finds friends who accept and value both her and her musical talents.

6) The Jacky Faber series by L. A. Meyer – There’s plenty of romance in this one too, and Jacky sparks with lots of men…but my favorite relationships in the series are her friendships.  Especially Jacky’s friendships with Amy, a Puritan who frequently shakes her head in horror at Jacky’s hijinks but loves her fiercely anyway; and with the ever-faithful Higgins, always ready with clean clothes, a spot of tea and a comb, not to mention well-deserved scolding.

7) Star Trek: Prime Directive by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens – My favorite friendship in all of fiction is the triumvirate of Kirk, Spock and McCoy.  Almost any (well-done) Star Trek book could be here to represent that, but this one is particularly good at depicting the bond, as well as the friendships between the rest of the regular characters.

8) The Squire’s Tale and The Squire, His Knight and His Lady by Gerald Morris – This series is a delightful retelling of Arthurian legends.  The first two books (and some later ones) focus on Squire Terrence and his knight, Sir Gawain.  They start out largely in the traditional, class-based roles, but through adventures together they come to trust and regard each other as equals, friends, and even brothers.

9) The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint – The friendship between Imogene and Maxine is the driving force of this story.  Both girls also have boyfriends by the end of the novel, but those relationships are secondary compared to the friendship story.  This is a nice example too where each girl balances and helps the other–wild child Maxine grows more responsible, while shy Imogene becomes more confident.

10) The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares – I’m listening to the audiobooks of this series, so it’s top-of-mind right now.  I do enjoy the way each girl has her own adventure every summer, involved in drama around boys or family or goals, but the friendship of the four girls (linked together by the pants, of course!) is bedrock of their lives.

I love finding new books with wonderful friendships in them!  There are so many romances in stories, it’s nice to see friendships highlighted.  So–what are your favorites?

I recently started following the meme, Thoughtful Thursday, hosted by Reading Is Fun Again.  Similar to the Blog Hop, a book-related discussion question is posted each week.  Here’s today’s question!

Do you prefer to read books with a male or female protagonist? Does the author’s gender matter?

This is probably going to sound like a very safe, very PC answer, but I honestly prefer books to have strong characters of both genders.  I tend to get more excited about amazing female characters, but I think that’s largely about there still being some deficit in that regard (aside from the recent surge in dystopian YA…)  Sadly, it still seems like an event to find a capable female character who plays an active role in her own story, all the more so if that story is a retelling of, say, a fairy tale, where that was not the case in the past.

I do feel like, at the end of the day, people are people, and characters should be people too, and whether they are male people or female people is secondary to whether they are complex, interesting, believable people that I want to spend the length of a book with.  The question of gender only becomes a really big thing for me when one gender is notably missing.

I read lots of books with great female characters last year, but my favorite character all year was Samwise Gamgee–but it still bothers me that there are so few women in Middle Earth.

As to the question of the protagonist and author being (or not) the same gender, mostly it doesn’t matter to me.  I’d be rather hypocritical if I did care a lot, considering my novel has a male protagonist!  But see above, people are people.  I’m not the same gender as Jasper, and I’m also not a wandering adventurer, or an orphan, or illiterate–it’s all imagined!

All that said, I am more likely to look sideways at a book if the main focus is the protagonist’s character development, rather than plot or worldbuilding or relationships, and the author is a different gender.  I’m not saying that can’t be done well!  Just that I’m slightly more skeptical because the author has more to overcome to do it well.  But I try to keep an open mind.

Your turn!  Do you strongly prefer to read one gender or the other, or does it not matter that much to you?

Don’t forget you can enter the KidLit Giveaway and win a signed copy of my novel!  Contest ends May 18th.