Gender Specific Tags? What Do You Think?
An interesting comment to my July 16 post on Shots at Sea: A Houdini & Nate Mystery (Houdini and Nate Mysteries)
Now things have swung a bit the other way now for my eleven-year-old son, a good reader. I'm having trouble finding good males..
I'm not trying to be sexist, but many modern girl books are just centered around social issues that leave him cold
She posits this suggestion for my posts:
This may seem a bit odd...could you consider adding labels for something like 'boy protagonist' or 'girl protagonist?'
Now mind you, this dilemma is old news to me. Susan has hit upon one of the hot-button issues in children's literature. In fact I once authored a journal article titled "Gender Gap in the Library," which showed a strong sex difference in Kindergarten kids' book choices. I well remember one of my library school texts pointing out the axiom by which children's librarians have lived since before Susan's daughter read her first novel and long before I first picked up a date stamp back in the day:
Girls will read "boy books" but boys will not read "girl books."
In the name of gender fairness, of course, there are many exceptions to this rule. My older son, for example, loved Harriet the Spy,
with all her social issues, even though the characters are primarily female (Sport comes on stronger in the sequels). Nevertheless it's obvious that there are many more millions of girls devouring Harry Potter than boys doting on Harriet M. Welsh.Fair-minded and savvy writers who want kids to buy and read their books (authors--and book reviewers--have to eat, too, you know) write novels with strong characters of both sexes in lead or major supporting roles--think A Wrinkle in Time
or The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (The Chronicles of Narnia)
or Bridge to Terabithia.
Even the Harry books wouldn't be the same without Hermione. (One wonders, however, despite Hermione's superior OWLS scores, whether Rowling would have sold so many books if the main character were Harriet Potter?)Still, the old library adage seems to be holding true for Susan's son, despite the fact that some of the best authors of "guy books," (I'm thinking of Andrew Clements, for example) actually do deal with family and social issues as deftly as "girl" novels do. And to be fair to Susan, I've seen many a male eyes glaze over at the offer of a book with a girl or even pastel colors on the cover. The whole Freudian thing about the so-called "latency period" seems to be holding up at least for elementary school boys' reading choices, where avoidance of "girl cooties" is one of the main drivers.
So what should I do? Do I risk keeping boys from reading about the modern day equivalent of Harriet the Spy by labelling the book "girl protagonist" or do I make the search term available for serious, knowledgeable parents like Susan by indicating the sex of the main character of each book I review? I do try for gender balance (a measurable factor), second only to quality (admittedly subjective), in my posts, but since I have to read and like the books I review, my taste is bound to be reflected in my posts. I'm not thrilled at the thought of going back and re-labelling every post (I'm up to 725 as of today), but I'm willing if it's important to my few but valued readers.)
What do you think?
Labels: Gender in Literature
posted by GTC at
12:01 AM
5 Comments:
Lack of "gender tags" doesn't bother me. I can figure out if one of my kids might like a book (or not) by the blurb, and whether the protagonist is a boy or girl doesn't much matter to them if the story is good.
But, now I have a question:
since I have to read and like the books I review
Why do you have to like them? I mean, other than not wanting to read a book you don't like - negative reviews of books can be useful too.
By
Marbel, at 5:59 AM
Dear Marbel,
You are right; negative reviews can be useful, and I have found them very helpful in book selection with (as always) a finite amount to expend.
Certainly if I were on salary, using free review copies or new titles as they were acquired by a (ideally well-funded) library, I would do both types of reviews. As it is, however, I have to either buy my own or search out copies I can read for free. (Publishers take note: I will accept free copies!)
As a mostly unremunerated reviewer, I expend a reasonable amount of time and energy (mine and my Honda Civic's) locating and buying the books and hours reading them and doing background research on the author's body of work before I write. Although I'm a decently expeditious writer, it also takes hours to prepare a post. There is a considerable investment in this process (average time per book is the equivalent of one or two 8-hour days), and it doesn't seem a judicious use of my time to write a negative review for a book that (on the basis of my opinion, at least) no one will want to buy or read.
In the case of certain highly touted titles, such as the book discussed in yesterday's post, I think it is safe to say I would have written a negative review HAD I RECEIVED IT, (still no delivery on BREAKING DAWN) to warn prospective readers that despite the hype it is a sub par literary offering.
I have enough of the critic's gene in me to enjoy skewering a bad book, but for the reasons above, I have decided to make Horn Book's business model my own and leave it to the (probably poorly paid, but paid) professional reviewers of Booklist, School Library Journal, Publisher's Weekly, and others to write the negative reviews.
I appreciate very much your comment and the opportunity to clarify my position. I will keep your words in mind and try to point out any non-fatal flaws as I see them in otherwise successful books.
Thank you,
By
GTC, at 9:16 AM
GTC - thanks for your comment, makes sense! As I reread my comment, my attempt at brevity sounds a little... terse. Argh.
By
Marbel, at 9:43 AM
This comment has been removed by the author.
By
shelley, at 6:17 PM
I've spent the last year teaching our 5 year old boy (now 6) how to read. He went from not knowing all the lower case letters to being able to read the "Stink" books (Judy Moody's younger brother) with some guidance.
He is very, very hard to find books for.
1) He isn't interested in, and doesn't much like, books with animals as the characters--that immediately wipes out about half of all beginning/emergent reader books, and
2) He doesn't much like books about girls--which knocks about 2/3rds of the rest.
That leaves us with what I would guess is roughly 1 book in 6 that is not about either animals or girls. (Thus the "Stink" books.)
Of those, of course he is still picky. So we are left with a tiny few to choose from, and I can commiserate with parents who want better and more-common "boy books". We sure need them in this house.
By
Auntie Ann, at 1:21 AM
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