From: Lynn Rutan <lynnrutan_at_charter.net>
Date: Sat, 10 Aug 2013 09:16:44 -0400

Thank you Megan for your thoughts which I echo. As is always the case with wonderful books whether illustrated or not, any “lesson” delivered is better shown in the context of the story rather than delivered with pile driver intent. Changing social norms, it seems to me, can be reflected without having to be the central issue of a story and can often be more effective for that approach.

Gender in child care, household jobs and routines, it seems to me, are one of the earliest gender roles children observe and experience, roles that I have noticed being shown in different ways in picture books. In Rosemary Well’s recent book Sophie’s Time Out the central story was about Sophie pushing boundaries and ending up in time out. Sophie’s father was doing the laundry in that story. In Blackout, John Rocco show the father cooking dinner while the mother works on a computer and it is Trixie’s Dad who takes her, Knuffle Bunny and the laundry to the laundromat down the block. It is a male primary school teacher in Brian Karas’ The Apple Orchard Riddle. In all these and more, the gender role is not the point of the story it is just what is happening. I appreciate this so much.

I hope for many more and of course I have a wish list. I’d love to see more books where the children go to day care or are cared for by grandparents, family members or sitters. These alternative care arrangements are such a fact of life for so many families today. I’d love to see more adults shown in the job roles reflecting that there has been some changes like women as bosses, firemen, policemen, doctors and pilots and men as nurses, teachers, etc. And - as a child care-providing grandmother, could grandparents be pictured as something OTHER than round, bespectacled, and frumpy ;-)

Lynn Rutan Bookends - Booklist Online Youth Blog lynnrutan_at_charter.net
Received on Sat 10 Aug 2013 09:16:44 AM CDT