EN
According to Małgorzata Wójcik-Dudek, „love takes the central place in the novels for girls. The reason for this fact is not only because of the emotional needs of young readers, but it is also the genetic consequence of the sub-genre”. The aim of the article is to examine the changes of the novels for girls which take place during three social and literary periods (middle-war, post-war period and contemporaneity) in terms of the way of presenting the main characters: especially the relations between male and female, which are being built by characters or – more often – which are being imposed on them; by the frames of genre, as well as by the readers’ expectations. The bestselling and canonical novels for girls have been analyzed (some of which are on the complementary reading list for primary schools): by Kornel Makuszyński, Krystyna Siesicka, Małgorzata Musierowicz or by Ewa Nowak. These are the classical novels, model for their sub-genre. Their main characters are easily recognizable, distinctive, sometimes they are the prototype of the type of character which is being developed later. The fact that the characters finding their way into the consciousness of an audience results in readers taking over the kind of a value system which is promoted in the novel. At the head of it there is a designed love – the model of a feeling, which is also associated with the heroines’ profiles and their attitude towards the world.