Fictional characters and impressionable kids
Author Jamie Cat Callan mused on Instagram that when you were a child you likely had favorite character in a book. Maybe you embraced a secret identity. Maybe you even joined a fan club. And then you grew up. You told yourself that you needed to be realistic, to earn a living and be a responsible citizen of the world.
But all those fantasies from childhood—you as a Beatnik or a secret agent or a movie star—they still live within you.
It might take many, many years, but if you keep the dreams alive, eventually they will come true. Not in the way you expect, but they will come true, in a different way.
Pippi was my hero
How I admired Pippi Longstocking’s physical and emotional strength. After all, she could lift a horse, sure, but more importantly, she faced the world with unshakable self-confidence. That boldness resonated with me.
Like Pippi, I also could have done away with my parents, but shh…
Pippi’s world is one where pancakes are dinner, pirates are real, and adults are often ridiculous. She loves imaginative play.
Like her, I had a strong creative streak and didn’t always want to follow the rules. There was something undeniably thrilling about her wildness. Curiosity was celebrated instead of corrected.
I often felt the weight of being told to behave, fit in, or “be a good girl,” whereas Pippi represented glorious defiance. She didn’t care what society thought of her mismatched socks or strange stories. The fact that she was alone, but not sad, independent, but still full of love was an appealing fantasy, especially for a kid who often felt misunderstood or out of place.
Did I leave her behind?
As I’ve grown older, I feel I’ve reclaimed that the wild-hearted, rule-bending, horse-lifting part of myself. Maybe it never really left. Maybe that persona waited for the right moment to swing back through the window.
Pippi didn’t ask permission to be herself. Neither do I now. Even if life is serious, she reminds me it doesn’t always have to be solemn. She rewrote the rules of the game, and that is something writers, artists, and resilient souls need to do.
She’s not here just for fun, either. She’s here to say: “You don’t need to be ordinary to be loved. You don’t need to be perfect to be powerful.”
How about you? Who was your fictional idol or your secret identity? Does that character still exist in you?
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My upcoming novel, Love and Other Incurable Ailments (10-27-2026, Regal House Publishing), is about an anxious overthinker whose fixation on a stranger pulls her straight into chaos, heartbreak, and the inconvenient unraveling of her carefully constructed life. She also discovers her wild girl within by the novel’s end.
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