An eight-year-old who asked, “What if a girl wanted a pirate book?” has won a victory for equality, after children’s publisher Scholastic stopped labelling books as “for girls” or “for boys”.
Els, from Bounds Green school in London, decided to get in touch with the publisher after spotting the title, Amazing Things for Boys to Make and Do – the “Cap’n of pirate fun books. Pure gold” – in a catalogue for the Scholastic book fair coming to her school. She wrote a petition, arguing that no books should be “for girls” or “for boys”.
She asked, “What if a girl wanted a pirate book and it said ‘For boys’, she might say ‘What’s wrong with me, I like boy’s stuff?’” and collected more than 80 signatures from friends, teachers and family members.
Els sent it to the publisher with the support of the campaign group Let Books Be Books, which also took Scholastic to task over an online tool for book recommendations. The “book wizard” quizzes children on their interests and – until Friday – offered “very different questions, and different books to boys and girls”, said the campaigners.
“We’d like to see Scholastic … drop ‘boys’ and ‘girls’ titles from their book fairs,” they added. “As the only major publisher with this kind of presence in schools, we feel they have a particular responsibility to market books in an inclusive way.”
Scholastic responded even before receiving the petition, removing gendered questions from their book wizard tool. They have also distanced themselves from the pirate book that caught Els’s eye, explaining that it was from another publisher, was featured in its latest selection of book club titles only to clear stock, and would not be featured again.
“Our website is in the process of being relaunched and a new Book Wizard is part of this work; already the boy and girl selection has been removed from Book Wizard,” said the publisher. “We are no longer publishing anything new pitched ‘for boys’ or ‘for girls’ in the title. Any historic titles still in the market will be reissued with new covers on reprint.
“At Scholastic, we appreciate that every child is different and has the right to choose the books that are right for them; we aim to have something on our list for every child.”
Jess Day at Let Books Be Books welcomed the news. “Els’s excellent letter lays out the issue so clearly,” she said. “It’s simply not on to tell children that boys and girls are meant to like different things, and we’re delighted that Scholastic have responded so quickly to her call for them to change.
“Gender simply isn’t a good guide to what children will enjoy. These labels also peddle dated and limiting stereotypes about boys and girls, stereotypes that can be actively harmful to children’s reading. Why would anyone want to shut out a reader and tell a child that a book is not for them because of their gender?”
The Let Books Be Books call to action is backed by authors including Neil Gaiman and Malorie Blackman, and so far publishers, including Ladybird and Usborne, and the bookseller Waterstones, have signed up. “Nine publishers have now agreed to let books be books,” said Day. “We hope that the rest will agree to drop these limiting labels.”
