Disclaimer: I do not have children, and I do not have a
teaching degree. My observations are based of personal experiences: memories of
my own childhood, and time spent with families I am friends with. I am an
English Honours student, and my thesis is focused on fairy tales and adaptations of fairytales,
subsequently, I have been thinking a lot about the purpose of stories for
children. I love books, I have always loved books. I love children, I have
a lot of friends with children. I love recommending books. This is something I
think about a lot.
I read a
lot. During semester my piles of books tend to be more academic or fiction I
will spend weeks closely analysing. While this is in many ways fun, it's not 'reading for fun'. When I have time to read for fun the variety of books is
considerable. Despite being almost twenty-three, I still enjoy reading
children's books.
In
addition to this, I read a lot of blogs, some by authors, others by readers and
something that is frequently discussed is the idea of ‘girl’ vs ‘boy’ books.
This affects books in every area from children’s stories to popular fiction to
the literary canon[i]. It is an
issue of what men/boys read, rather than what women read.
This is something I believe can be
rectified by the way we approach children’s books. In general it is acceptable
for girls to read and enjoy books with male characters or that fit a
traditionally male genre, such as adventure books. However, it seems to me that
the idea that a boy cannot read and enjoy a book with a female protagonist or
by a female author is pervasive[ii].
Most
people seem to accept that girls read and enjoy books with adventure, a male
protagonist, and/or author. But the idea that a boy cannont read and enjoy a book with a female protagonist, or even female author is pervasive, and I think problematic for several
reasons.
Through
out my pre-tertiary education we rarely studied texts as a class that had
female protagonists[iii]. What does
this say to children? That books about boys are the ones worth studying. That boy books are serious and legitimate, and girl
books are trivial[iv].
If children
are told that girl books are only for girls, this contributes to a cultural
understanding that is already in place[v]
that devalues the feminine. Children can learn that boys who like so called
girl things are girly and that is a bad thing.
How can we
possibly think it is okay to allow young boys to see anything associated with
femininity as negative, as 'other' and as inferior?
Books have
immense power, they are a fantastic way to experience lives outside of
ourselves, to learn to empathise and respect people who are different from
us. If it is perfectly acceptable for girls to learn to empathise with and
respect boys, why is it not the same for boys?
I do not
think gender is an appropriate way to categorise books. Sure, maybe a lot boys
prefer adventure fiction, and maybe a lot of girls prefer domestic stories
focused on relationships[vi], but the
idea that the gender of either a main character or the author should influence
the decision to read a story is absurd.
When
deciding what books are appropriate for a child I think the biggest things
to consider are:
•
Have you
read the book yourself? Obviously this is ideal and really not possible all the
time. If you can't read the book yourself, you should still talk to your child
about what they are discovering as they read.
•
Is it an
appropriate level for your child's reading/listening and concentration skills?
•
Are the
themes appropriate to your child's maturity? (don't underestimate them!)
•
Is it the
kind of genre (also an imperfect way of categorising stories) your child
enjoys?
•
Is it a
good book? Children, unexplainably, often love books that are poorly written,
or completely boring to adults. This is okay. However, I think it is
good to encourage reading books that are beautiful[vii]
and develop an appreciation of the different ways books can be good (good
writing, good characterisation or good plot etc).
Most
importantly, talking about books and reading with your children is a fantastic way to
develop their critical thinking skills.
I
plan to write some reviews of children’s books I love to help parents in making
these decisions, but it depends on my university work load. Would people be
interested?
N.B Shannon
Hale wrote a post a while ago with recommendations of books boys will love with
female characters.
[i] How many men
are encouraged to read Jane Austen?
[ii] J.K
Rowling’s initials were used in printing Harry Potter so as to not be off
putting to potential male readers.
[iii] My memory
is not perfect, but I am reasonably sure that men wrote the majority of texts I
studied in English, or the texts had male protagonists.
[iv] An
interesting point on this playing out in adulthood is current discussion about
Wikipedia categories.
[v] But
thankfully, now often challenged
[vi] I’m not
convinced this is actually true, I always liked both kinds.
[vii] This is an
inadequate way of describing how I feel about a good book, but I am struggling
to find a better one.
