This dissertation examines a number of popular girls’ novels in relation to their time of publication in the early twentieth century, a time when women of Canada, Britain, and the United States were experiencing increased involvement in the public sphere; these novels are: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903); A Little Princess (1905); The Secret Garden (1911); the Pearl Watson trilogy (Sowing Seeds in Danny [1908], The Second Chance [1910], and Purple Springs [1921]); Anne of Green Gables (1908); Anne of Avonlea (1909); Pollyanna (1913); and Pollyanna Grows Up (1915). Drawing on theories of female mobility and feminist geographies, I explore the presentation of fictional girls and women in these novels as engaged in public matters. I argue that the novels depict them exploring and pushing the boundaries of what their roles in the public sphere could be while also delimiting the borders within which their involvement is acceptable. In chapter one, I establish physical mobility’s integral role in constituting the model girl, a girl who can embody the qualities that make her a valuable member of the nation. Chapter two explores the girls’ use of physical mobility to spread visions of national identity within local communities. The third chapter contrasts rural spaces with urban ones and links physical mobility with social mobility; girls’ ability to promote domestic comfort through upward social mobility and easy physical movement is impinged in urban settings. Chapter four takes up the movement from girlhood to womanhood and the similarities in girls’ narratives are juxtaposed with the varied unconventionalities and masculine powers available to women. In chapter five, I shift from the fictional to the historical to examine how two of the authors, Nellie L. McClung and L.M. Montgomery, navigated gender expectations and their own relationships to the public sphere, constructing personas that would circulate in public and moving between private and public spaces.