Unit 3 Discussion

Are there boy books and girl books? Do we embrace this as a professional necessity or do we actively try to fight stereotypes?

This week's topic is interesting to me because there are so many different thoughts about this. I do not believe there are girl and boy books, but I do believe that there are gender specific books on a base level but advertising and society changes this. Different colors are used on so called girl books than on boy books. This is especially prominent in children's picture books. There are books with pink covers and ones with blue covers. We teach our children young that pink is a girl color and blue is a boy color so they gravitate to those books. 

As children get older, the pressure rises to fit into the gender roles society places on them. The girl who wants to read Diary of a Wimpy Kid instead of Dork Diaries can be made fun of by her peers because it is a boy book. I found it very fascinating that it is harder to get boys to read than girls. This may be due to the fact that boys are raised to spend less time reading and more time outside. The stereotypes have been passed down over the generations and even though we have come so far in creating equality, it still shows. The article "Sweet Valley High" talked about how boys used to be more academically advanced than girls but that it has changed in the last few years and the girls are pulling ahead. I wonder why this is. The article explains a few reasons but more studies would have to be done to conclude anything. 

This week I read Hatchet which is supposed to be a boy book. I had honestly never read it and now I am sorry that I hadn't sooner. The way it was written, the gender did not matter because it was a person trying to survive. This book was a page turner and I will be recommending it to many of the kids I work with. I think girls and boys alike would like this book. Now, "Are You There God, Its Me Margaret" talks about some personal issues girls go through during puberty which could make a boy want to read a different book. In this case, the interests of boys and girls and what happens to them in puberty will be different. 

Books should not be judged by whether they have a male or female protagonist. There are books that both genders can enjoy equally and in many different ways.