Tomboy With A Girly Streak / Literature

• In the American Girls Collection, Felicity is a Fiery Redhead and Blithe Spirit in the Virginia colony who loves to ride horses and is often contrasted with her prim little sister Nan. However in Felicity's Surprise she becomes enamored with a fancy dress pattern she sees at the milliner's shop and is excited to have the opportunity to attend a dancing lesson at the Governer's home.
• Animorphs does this for both its female characters, as each is very traditionally feminine in some ways and very not in others, so which is which in the Tomboy and Girly Girl duo depends on the situation. Animal-lover Cassie never hesitates to get dirty and her version of high fashion is socks that have no holes and maybe even match... but she is The Heart and conscience of the team. Rachel who loves a good scrap and scares herself with her Blood Knight streak would probably be a supermodel if not for the whole Alien Invasion thing eating up so much of her time. Very pretty and fashionable and described as having her own private spotlight.
• Two characters in the Bad News Ballet series:
  • McGee (who goes by her last name as a nickname as she hates her first name of Kathryn) is a massive tomboy who starts the series off by stating she hates ballet and much prefers hockey. She's attending ballet because it's an agreement with her mother, who will leave her to it if she does ballet class formally at least once a week. By the end of the first book (having bonded with her fellow misfits) she's a bit more accepting, and—though she retains her tomboy ways—she remains part of the class through the full series run.
  • The Lad-ette Rocky is rough and tumble and gets into fights often, owing to her four older brothers all picking on her from the time she was small—but also likes to try on her mother's formal gowns and dress up. She doesn't say so as she's sure her bullying brothers would make fun of her if they ever found out she likes pretty clothes. One of her hopes—before they're cast as mice in the production of The Nutcracker—is that maybe they'll get to wear nice costumes in their roles.
• The tiefling twins Farideh and Havilar from Brimstone Angels both mix "tomboy" and "girly girl" traits so that which is which varies based on the situation. Farideh is the more withdrawn, broody one who has less interest in physical things but is skilled at magic, and she also cares relatively little for physical beauty or romantic relationships (outside of the weird love-hate thing she's got going on with Lorcan, the cambion devil with whom she made a deal for her powers). Havilar, by contrast, is energetic and outgoing, flirts heavily with the only male character about her age (and they end up together in the second book), and loves the chance to look pretty, but she's also athletic, aggressive, and more than a bit of a Blood Knight who'll lay the smackdown on you with her glaive and love every minute of it if you get on her bad side.
• Mikoto Misaka from A Certain Magical Index and A Certain Scientific Railgun. She wears shorts under her skirt, and when allowed seems to prefer to do away with the skirt altogether. She's a bit violent and seems to enjoy a friendly fight. She's also a complete sucker for cute childish Gekota (an in-universe frog mascot) items, and she likes large stuffed animals.
• The Chronicles of Narnia has Queen Lucy show one in The Horse and His Boy, where she talks with fellow Tomboy Princess Aravis about dresses and girly things. Of course, given that Aravis has arrived in Archenland with nothing but the ragged clothes she's standing in a focus on new clothes and decorating a set of rooms for her is completely understandable.
• It is very briefly mentioned in Good Omens that the extremely tomboyish Pepper reads Just Seventeen (a fashion and pop magazine) under plain covers, and she also has a Sindy stable set which she insists she never used even though it's all worn-out.
• Harry Potter: Ginny grew up with many brothers and thus learned to be tough. She loves playing sports such as Quidditch and insists on joining Harry and the others in fighting against the Death Eaters. She also is very popular amongst the boys, keeps a pink Pygmy Puff as a pet, and nursed a crush for Harry for quite some time (implicitly since she was eleven).
• A Mage's Power: Tiza has crude manners, loves fighting, and detests domestic jobs. She can't stand being called a lady. Despite all this, she likes wearing jewelry, as long as it was made from a monster that she killed herself, and owns many more pairs of shoes than she truly needs (she insists they all have practical purposes).
• Katarina from My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! was a tomboy in her previous life (a result of her having two older brothers), and this carried over once her memories reawoken. She enjoys climbing trees, fishing, and farming, but she's also a big fan of old-fashioned romance novels (which is how she initially bonded with Sophia).
• The Neapolitan Novels: Lila, mainly when she was a child. She was a mischievous, foul-mouthed troublemaker with an unkempt appearance compared to the other little girls, and she wasn't afraid of getting into physical fights with boys, throwing objects at her schoolmates, and talking to criminals. But she was protective of her doll, loved reading (her favorite book being Little Women) and drawing princesses, and she also wrote her own short story titled "The Blue Fairy".
• Vin, the heroine of Mistborn: The Original Trilogy starts out a pure tomboy but develops into one of these after realizing that despite what her abusive older brother raised her to believe, she can be girly without being weak.
• Beatrice Löwenström, the ladette-like female protagonist of Överenskommelser by Simona Ahrnstedt, might compete with men in ice-skating and horse-riding. But she also tries to follow the fashion of the era and can be seen wearing fancy dresses, makeup, and high heels.
• Pippi Longstocking is strong enough to carry a horse, will climb trees and houses like nobody's business, and fight bad guys and pirates alike, but she also bakes gingerbread at home, arranges coffee parties with her friends, and lovingly cares for anyone she likes including her horse and her monkey.
• Kel from Protector of the Small is as serious and stoic a fighter as they come, is rarely seen without bruises and is only the second girl in hundreds of years to try for knighthood. She is also very caring to her collection of stray animals, cries when frustrated, and earns the nickname "Mother" for how she cares for the refugee children she's responsible for protecting. As a young page, she deliberately invoked this trope by wearing dresses as often as possible to remind the boys in her class that she is, in fact, a girl.
• In Reborn to Master the Blade, the protagonist, Inglis, was a male Warrior King in his first life, and is reborn as a female noblewoman in this one. Despite some initial misgivings about the unwanted gender change, she quickly realizes that it is no obstacle in her goal to get into tough fights, grow stronger, and avoid any sort of high position that would keep her out of a battlefield again. Still, she rather enjoys dressing up in fancy dresses, enjoys the company of other feminine women, and finds a new mysterious taste for sweets like her female cousin, Rafinha.
• Bridget in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a Passionate Sports Girl soccer player with a passion for archaeology, who is also very flirty and quite the Proud Beauty.
• Alanna from Song of the Lioness disguised herself as a boy to become a knight, and maintains the short hair and attitude such that until she becomes famous is often mistaken for a young man. She also has a penchant for amethyst jewelry and admits to a friend in book two that she misses the opportunity to wear pretty things when she wishes to.
• In the Spy School series, Erica Hale is a very focused Action Girl with few interests or hobbies outside of the Spy School. She also has a bedroom full of gingham pillows and posters of kittens (which Ben is under strict orders to never reveal to their friends). When she was younger, she loved to pretend she was a princess, although she claims that she was really pretending to be a spy undercover as a princess (a claim that no one believes).
• In a Sweet Valley Twins book, the protagonist decides to become this after seeing how pretty she looks when dressed up for a school dance.
• The Witch of Knightcharm: Hannah Guo, from Emily's original team, is one of these. She's a brawler who uses magic to make herself stronger and more durable in fights and whose idea of a fun night out is going to watch MMA matches live. But she also likes to watch a trashy dance reality show.

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