Watch this video if you will, as prep for today's ReadItTorial...


This is a promotional video for "Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls" which is an upcoming anthology of children's stories, based around some of the most inspirational and fantastic women you could ever delve into a history book and learn about.

Normally this is the sort of book I'd be cheering in the loudest voice possible for (in fact I do still want to see a copy regardless of the tone of this article).

However, I have some serious issues with the promotional video and it seems quite a few others do too (and not just males, so just stop right there if you think this is some sort of mysogynistic rant about what's essentially a brilliant feminist book idea - and furthermore, if you think that's how things go down on this blog written by a dad and his daughter, you really need to check through our post history a few thousand times - or let the door hit your ass on the way out, kthanksbye).

If you're still reading (thank you!), the issues I had with the video were that right off the bat it just did not represent our experience of 7 years and 4000 or more books read, reviewed and critiqued. Not even close. So we ran a little experiment at home, taking one of our bookshelves as a sample just like in the video - and tackling each of the video's statements in turn:

1) "Male characters feature in up to 100% of books". (FSU Study finds 100 years of gender bias in children's books). 

FSU (I'm assuming Florida State University but that could mean anything really) study actually is worth a read, clearly states that male 'central' characters did (in 2011) feature in 57% of books but nearly all books polled (with no specifics on titles, nor how these were picked) featured in up to 100% of children's books.

We have so many books at home, we just randomly picked on one of our bookcases. Our findings were that in titles published in the last 20 years pulled from our shelves, the gender bias was actually so near-parity as to be negligible, with an equal amount of male / female characters featuring in 100% of books and closer to a 72% majority for central female characters in the books on our shelves.

2) In a study of 5000 children's books, 25% had zero female characters in them (again figures culled from the same report). 

Again we drew from our own collection - out of a random selection of 200 titles culled from our children's picture book collection, only 3 had zero female characters in them (less than 6%)

(Notably, of he three that had zero female characters two were, interestingly, written and illustrated by women).

3) "Time Magazine listed the 100 best books of all time. Only 53 had females that speak". 

We always have an issue with any list (particularly those by newspapers and magazines) that list the 100 best anything of all time, but again the number here suggests that better than half had females that speak.

Once again we looked at the same stack of books from our own shelves. Only 4 featured female characters with no dialogue or 'lines' and one of the books was wordless anyway (but featured both a strong female lead and matriarch figure).

4) "Across children's media, only 19.5% of female characters hold jobs or have career aspirations vs 80.5% of male characters (jane.org occupational aspirations figures 2013)

 This was actually the toughest to distil as we found that around 30 to 40% of books we pulled from our stacks featured stories where career aspirations were not part of the narrative for either gender. Of books where jobs or services formed part of the story, again the balance was closer to parity 47% female vs 53% male - but not an exact balance if that was what was being looked for in the study.

5) "Excuse me sir, I want to go to mars, do you have a book for that?"

The video rounds off with a very empty bookshelf, and a simple question from the girl in the video. Does the world of children's publishing have space books for girls? Does the children's publishing industry have fictional storybook titles that would inspire a space-loving gal with a love of flight and science perhaps? We'd like to think so

"Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls" has raised a lot of questions - whether children's publishing is truly making progress and leading the charge when it comes to addressing gender bias in any form of media, not just children's stories.

In our few years of reviewing children's books, certainly compared to what things were like when we first started out, we've seen a massive surge in the number of books we've received for review that feature mighty girl main characters, that aren't just written to stick a girl in a normally male dominated role but are written BECAUSE that mighty girl character fits that role perfectly regardless of gender.

Female authors, illustrators, editorial staff, designers, marketers, PR folk - again we see an industry where it's actually quite rare to see a month where we get to review more than a handful of titles written by men or solely written for boys.

There are plenty of male illustrators and authors working in the industry but in general it's hugely female dominated and so the Rebel Girls video feels like it's suggesting that in a female-dominated industry, we're somehow still allowing there to be a clear state of play where males 'rule the roost' in children's books.

There are some things that still drive us utterly potty about children's stories and gender - and not just gender, but diversity so there's no denying that there are massive improvements to be made.

I could moan that there are still way too many children's books that show dads (for example) as being the slightly dozy / lazy / greedy / comedic prat-falling / less intelligent partner in a couple if a book features a family. Male characters are also more predominantly depicted as bullies, criminals, miscreants or pains-in-the-ass for their female siblings than female (though we do love a good cracking female villain).

It's very easy to spin something to fit a certain idea or agenda, or to promote a particular (mis)conception. The craziest thing of all is that we would have bought the HELL of this book (and we probably still will) purely because we love books that celebrate famous female figures from history, science and art or just about anything else you'd care to mention (and we've already had an utterly perfect book like this from none other than Kate Pankhurst - "Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World" - a former Book of the Week and a book we tirelessly campaign folk to buy for their kids.

We'd love to hear your opinion on the promotional video, and whether you feel that the figures reflect your experiences in children's books - and in fact we'd love to hear from people with boys who can see the flip side of the coin and really struggle to find great quality children's picture books where boys are more than just the annoying twerp next door who is always getting into trouble or scrapes.

Edit: Worth reading this article about the Rebel Girls video / book from The Guardian that does indeed suggest that the bookshelf video was 'set up' to reflect the figures as a visual demonstration - something that really should have been made clear from the outset in the video and on the website (Thanks to Catherine Friess for pointing out this link)

"This book is sending me to...zzzzzzzzzzzz"

In no particular order then...

1) "I'm your friend, I'm not your friend, I'm your friend again because I realise how great friends are" books. Friendships are important as soon as children's social circles start expanding, through school and clubs and all the other things kids get into. But does the world really need another children's book where this is bluntly mapped out and described, as if this is something that needs a manual? Books like these often feature cute and cuddly animals (we resisted the temptation to add that as one of our top ten bugbears, because cute and cuddly can still work beautifully in books without being too sickly). We would love to see a children's picture book that accurately maps out a real childhood friendship - that peaks and troughs like an oscilloscope listening to rave music!

2) Pirates. This is a tough one for us to add to the list because we do rather like a nautical tale, but I think we approached peak blackbeard quite some time ago. Perhaps it's as we described in the lead-in to this post, that so many hit the market at the same time despite all being proposed, requisitioned and published completely separately, but sometimes we only have to get a whiff of a skull and crossbones on a cover, and another angry-looking one-eyed pirate captain with a wooden leg and a hook hand to make us run for the nearest desert island clutching our booties. Now, more girl pirates (says Charlotte) - That's something worth working on. (Please note though: Certain folk who write and illustrate pirate tales get a free pass because they always make us giggle and always come up with a good dose of originality for their stuff. You know who you are!)

3) Princesses. The flip-side of the "pirate" doubloon. Princesses show absolutely no signs of losing popularity, and though Charlotte has moved on a tad from the usual Disney-inspired CinderellaBelleBriarRoseFrogPrincessMeridaSnowWhite stuff, tales of gutsy princesses who flip the usual wishy washy princess tropes on their head can still win her over. It's the others though, those books where Princess Mimsy-Poo lives a decadent life of eating jam tarts, wearing incredible dresses and obsessing about pink that we'd love to see take a well earned break.

4) Flatulence Fiction. It's a whole new genre, didn't you know? Farts, botty burps, trouser trumps, rip-snorters, pantaloon polluters are big business in the children's book market and we've seen many a story wear out its welcome by pivoting around the central theme of letting one off. Humans are at it, animals are at it, we're just surprised that we haven't (yet) seen a story about a friend who is a pirate princess who really likes a damned good trump first thing in the morning to set them up for a quirky adventure!

5) Similar to the above, you could add in the rest of the toilet repertoire. Poos, wees, the odd honking incident. Bodily functions in all their squirty, dirty glory are staple fare for kids from the moment they laugh at their own messes, to the moment they become irrationally obsessed with personal hygiene (ie the minute they start feeling a need to impress the opposite sex). What happens in the toilet (or sometimes, disastrously, as far away from the toilet as possible) should really stay in the toilet. Some of us are trying to eat while reviewing this stuff! (To redress the grumble, it's fair to say that children's illustrators really are pulling out all the stops in depicting the subject matter at hand here so a doff of the cap to them for their efforts!)

6) Bears. Hmm, we're in two minds about including bears in the list as we do rather like a lot of books with bears in them, but it takes a rather amazing, spectacular and astonishingly original bear book to sneak in under our radar and make us sit up and take notice. Bears have been some of the best-loved children's characters for aeons and if we do a quick head count on the blog for bear-based books we'd probably say around 20% of our children's book intake revolves around a bear of some description. How many other animal species on the planet never get a look in because Bruin is hogging the limelight though? Pass on the panda, get rid of the grizzly, wave bye bye to the brown bear, where are all the kids books about wolverines, capybaras, Okapis, Tasmanian Devils eh?

7) Dumb dads. Oh we could really go to town on this subject and I'm sure a lot of other book-loving blogger dads will nod in agreement. The dad has long been used as a comical device in children's stories. They're often shown as the ones being a bit lazy, quite often greedy, absolutely always a bit rubbish in comparison to mums - and here's something that's slightly more serious - dads are often the 'missing' partner in children's stories where only a single parent is shown. There have been some great stories showing dads on their own (and there have also been some fairly irritating stories where dads are irrepressibly smug and brilliant at everything they do so we can understand why they're often relegated to being there for comic value only). Give dads their day though, we're not all completely useless (alright, don't ask Charlotte's mum whether this is true, she'll probably tell you that 'dumb dads' are quite an accurate portrayal really!)

8) Mining old and well-worn out-of-copyright stories to produce "a new and exciting and vibrant version for a modern age". Some authors and illustrators are amazing at successfully doing this, and doing it well. Some authors and illustrators absolutely nail producing a version of a classic tale that is stuffed with originality and delight. But we still see an awful lot of children's picture books where a 'classic' is given the thinnest veneer of gilding, bringing nothing really new to the tale itself. Certain tales have been respun and rewoven so many times, they remind us of the poor princess working at the spinning wheel trying to turn straw into gold before Rumplestiltskin shows up!

9) Revolting rhymes and poorly poetry. The majority of rhyming stories we encounter are a delicious delight, tripping off the tongue when read aloud, and causing an internal chuckle or two when read to ourselves. Sometimes though we read rhyming stories that cause us to ask ourselves "Hey, would this be a really great book if it didn't rhyme like a train crashing down the side of a mountain on fire, and that mountain happens to be a Volcano, and that Volcano is sitting on a gigantic earthquake and the whole thing explodes in a huge chaotic mess of lava, train bits and steam?" (Alright, I'll admit it, as analogies go that's a pretty terrible one). Rhymes should feel like having your tongue wrapped in the most delicious wordy silken sylph-like textures. Some just feel like getting a bit of apple or crisp stuck down between your teeth and your gums. Owch.

10) Boy / Girl books and comics. Wait, wait, we're not going to make the same point that has been made over and over and over again (and quite rightly so) about gender bias in books - but we would really love to underline a point we brought up recently in an editorial about how Marvel and DC just don't "get" kids. It's not just about outwardly labelling a book as a "boy" book or a "girl" book, nor is it about the justified outrage that in certain children's stories the gender bias is more subtle but still there - dad goes off to work, mum looks after the kids and the house. It's more about the fact that no one needs to explicitly tell children what to like and what not to like, no one can really say they've expertly designed a character range that from a glance will instantly have massive girl appeal or boy appeal (girls - you get the cheesy clean-cut teen dreams like the new DC superhero and supervillain stuff that's been specifically designed for you. Boys, you get the usual weaponised violent pithy superhero stuff that is so far removed from its original source material that you'll probably never recognise the original comics those products are based on!) Books and comics for children shouldn't need to shout from the rooftops that they've been tailored in any way for a target audience. Let the audience make up their own minds, boy or girl and if your stories and characters are strong enough, you won't need to lead people by the nose!

And there you have it. 10 things that we'd love to see put on hold (for a while, or in the case of number 10 - permanently). We look forward to seeing what you come up with to prove us wrong on each of these points :)