My earliest independent reading memory is The Story of Ferdinand by Leaf and Lawson. I loved that bull! My favourite book growing up Big books gave me the whirlies so it took a while for them to start landing.
Claude Chabrol, the celebrated co-founder of the French New Wave, stated, 'Because men are living, and women are surviving. Cinema is about surviving.' This profound insight influenced Petzold's approach to storytelling.
Amy Heckerling envisioned a female protagonist who is relentlessly positive, naïve, and convinced of her centrality, which ultimately became the character Cher Horowitz in Clueless.