From: Megan Schliesman <Schliesman>
Date: Fri, 22 Jul 2005 11:09:54 -0500

Rachel, Laban and Maia's messages make me wonder--where in popular culture and in literature are messages that defy the gender stereotypes that do exist? The fact that young boys and girls do at some point decide some things are appropriate for boys only, and some for girls only certainly underscores the predominance of the message that certain behaviors, likes, dislikes etc. are only appropriate for one or anther.

(My own recent example of this involves my daughter's best friend, a 5-year-old boy who was teased by other kids at their preschool for wearing nail polish on his toes.
 Luckily, one of the terrific teachers there, a young man, sat down with the kids who had teased him and talked about it with them. I was happy to see Jeremy at my house several days later still in his nail polish--pleased that it hadn't deterred him from wearing what obviously made him happy.)


And of course it's not just popular culture that sends those messages--they run much deeper than that, which is why, of course, it's hard to name many books--especially books for very young children--that defy or counter those messages. As Norma Jean said, "books reflect the society in which we live."

Norma Jean also said, "To my way of thinking, the 'people' in a story should not be manipulated to fulfill a certain philosophy but reflect who they are." and I completely agree. And yet I imagine we all know children--many children--who are NOT tuned in to, or at least bound by, what society says about what a girl or boy be should be and do.
 And I also think that when kids throw out comments like "boys don't like pink" or
"boys don't like wear nail polish" they are trying to figure it out. They are echoing waht they've heard or observed, but they are also puzzled, because here is a boy who likes pink (and maybe they do too, secretly), and here is a boy wearing nail polish.

So while I don't want message books, I would love to see more books that show children like that--like William in William's Doll and Toby in Toby's Doll House, which have already been mentioned, and the little girl in Insects Are My Life by Megan McDonald. Not books with a message, but books that refelct the way kids often and really are.

Also, without doing a lot of digging, it seems to me that for preschoolers, the small number of books like this that exist are more often about boys, but for elementary age the emphasis is on books about girls-?ing strong and independent. What do you think?

Megan




Megan Schliesman, Librarian Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education, UW-Madison 600 N. Park St., Room 4290 Madison, WI 53706

ph: 608&2?03 fax: 608&2I33 schliesman at education.wisc.edu
Received on Fri 22 Jul 2005 11:09:54 AM CDT