Top Ten Tuesday: Characters You'd Like to See All Grown Up

"Top Ten Tuesday" is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish!

This week, we're talking about what classic characters we'd like to check in with as adults! 

To be perfectly honest, this week's "Top Ten Tuesday" is aligning pretty well with my world-view right now: edging closer and closer to graduation, I'm finding myself with little-to-no blueprint for how to manage this scary transition in my life, so coming up with ideas as to how some of my favorite written characters from my youth would be bridging the change was a welcome idea! 

I have no idea what I'm doing after college, and it's hard to imagine where I'll be, even a year from now... but it's a lot more fun to think of what kind of adventures Nancy Drew or Mary Lennox would be up to. 

Unfortunately, most of the classic books I thought of have that kind of perspective afforded in their primary narrative: Jane Eyre and Anne of Green Gables already complete the transition from their childhood to adulthood, and don't get me started on the amounts of grownup Alice in Wonderland we've gotten! Still, I did my best with trying to find avenues for more interesting exploits featuring some of my favorite fictional figures. 


1. Nancy - the Nancy Drew series, Carolyn Keene
Nancy's been on almost every list I've looked at on my favorite blogs thus far, so I think we're all in agreement: we want a Drew update! Did she finally commit to Ned? Did she become a full-time detective, or was she forced to get a real-person job (and how did that impact her ability to follow through with mysteries)? What's sleuthing like when you're a twenty-something and you're still getting into the same kinds of trouble? We want to know! 

2. Mary - The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Mary did a lot of growing in her original novel, but I wonder what she would be like all grown up and looking for purpose beyond Misslethwaite Manor? Maybe a passion for landscape design? Or taking in more orphans, like herself? 

3. Blue and her Aglionby Boys - The Raven Cycle, by Maggie Stiefvater
I acknowledge that this is 100% because I just finished the quartet last week... but I want more! 

4. updates on the Dear America journals!
I can't be the only one who would think this was cool. Through the Dear America series, we engaged with historical events through the firsthand accounts of young girls who kept journals; what if we could revisit some of those characters and their families, in order to get a perspective on other events, too? A perspective on the ship that couldn't fail, grows up to tell the story of how the banks of America failed? The girl who spoke of hope during the Great Depression, grows up to lead women to the factories during WWII? 

5. Cuh-laire and The Pretty Committee - The Clique Series, by Lisi Harrison
Okay, so it would basically be Gossip Girl. But I tore through these books like a madwoman when I was but a madgirl, and I never could get enough of the brand-name-dropping, highly glossed and overly spoiled girls of Westchester. 

6. Stanley - Holes, by Louis Sachar
I have this vision in my head, that Stanley used all that money left to him and Zero, and used it not only to provide for his family, but get a great education, and send himself to law school, in order to protect other kids from the unjust system that had him and his friends out digging so many darn holes. Maybe one of the other guys would end up back in the system due to false arrest, and he'd defend them! 

7. Matilda - Matilda, by Roald Dahl
Also not a stranger to today's "TTT" topic, based on the lists I've seen. What has our precocious and prodigious young Matilda grown up to do? 

8. Coraline - Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
I feel like Coraline would grow up to be a total badass... not that she wasn't one already! She'd travel around the country solving supernatural mysteries, Scooby-Doo style, and would work for free when they involved children. But she'd always remember to stay in touch with her parents! 

9. Ella - Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine
Maybe this is my own personal opinion, but way too many fairy tales stop at the True Love's Kiss and the big white wedding. I want to know how Ella adapts to helping run a country, whether that obedience thing ever kicks back in, or if any other pesky fairies try something silly! 

10. Cath - Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell
We all know Cath would grow up and write novels for a living, but what kind of books would she write? Would she be a best-seller, or a struggling author while juggling other kinds of work? Would she still be with Levi? Rainbow, help me out here! 

What's in your Top Ten? Let me know, in the comments below!