As if book publishers and sellers don’t have enough to worry about. There used to be plenty of bookshops in my area, now there is one (which has changed management 3 times in 3 years!).
I do not like gender stereotyping and I detest sexism, but let our children read the books they want to read. If boys centered books attract a new market of male readers – isn’t that a good thing? If girl centered books features ideas and insights that are almost exclusively meaningful to girls, is that really objectionable?
Why can’t we allow our children the right to decide for themselves whether they want to read a book pitched at their gender without having others ban them from making such a choice? Why can’t we support our writers, publishers and sellers, who are already facing challenges within the ailing industry:
A national campaign to stop children’s books being labelled as “for boys” or “for girls” has won the support of Britain’s largest specialist bookseller Waterstones, as well as children’s laureate Malorie Blackman, poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Philip Pullman and a handful of publishers.
The Let Books Be Books campaign seeks to put pressure on retailers and publishers not to market children’s books that promote “limiting gender stereotypes”.
A petition calling on children’s publishers to “stop labelling books, in the title or on the packaging, as for girls or for boys” because “telling children which stories and activities are ‘for them’ based on their gender closes down whole worlds of interest,” has passed 3,000 signatures.
Click on the link to read This is What I Think of the No Hugging Rule at Schools
Click on the link to read Political Correctness at School
Click on the link to read What Are We Doing to Our Kids?
Click on the link to read Stop Banning Our Kids From Being Kids
Click on the link to read Banning Home-Made Lunches is a Dreadful Policy
Tags: Books, books for boys, books for girls, Carol Ann Duffy, Education, Gender Sterotypes, Let Books Be Books campaign, limiting gender stereotypes, Literacy, Malorie Blackman, News, Parragon and Usborne, Philip Pullman, Political Correctness, Sexism, stop children's books being labelled as "for boys", stop children's books being labelled as "for girls"
Topical Teaching 
March 18, 2014 at 12:31 am |
I love this idea! As long as a child is reading why does it matter who the main character is, what the topic is, or who it may or may not have been written for. My child is capable of reading but chooses not to, anytime I catch him reading my choice I cheer and move on.
March 18, 2014 at 12:33 am |
Thinking maybe I missed a step in my previous reply. I’ve had students turn down book suggestions because the book was suggested for the opposite gender. I think simply removing that suggestion from the book might make a difference in getting some kids to really enjoy reading, helping them find a series they enjoy.
March 18, 2014 at 12:45 am |
This is the kind of lunacy that gives power to such terms as “feminazi”. At a school where I worked an incoming female principal went through all the basic readers and library books culling out every book that depicted anything that would, in former days, constitute normal family life. So if a book was about a family that consisted of a mother, who worked in the home, and father, who went out to work, and children, who went to the beach and said their prayers, that book was gone. A book that depicted a family with two “mommies” or two daddies or just one mommy who was a business executive would have been safe.
This kind of perversion pretends to value diversity but only a diversity that deviates from, and excludes, the overwhelming norm. While gender stereotyping and sexism is to be frowned upon there is no need to go to an extreme that devalues the traditional family.
A school ought to be free from these kinds of agendas. Children should be free to read any kind of book they wish, provided it is age appropriate.
March 18, 2014 at 12:49 am |
In addition to my previous comment, why should there not be books more suitable for boys, and books more suitable for girls, provided there are also plenty of books that are suitable for both genders?