I had never heard of the Rainbow Magic books (Scholastic) when my son, then five, announced that he wanted to read them; it soon became apparent that they were the new “in” books with his friends at school (kids with names like Emily and Ava and Sophie). So we borrowed Ruby the Red Fairy from the library, and he loved it: the good kids and the bad villains, the magic, the predictable formula, the tidy resolution. We moved on from the Rainbow Fairies to the Weather Fairies, and I told my partner it was his turn to read the next set (there being only so much trite writing I am willing to endure for the sake of crossing gender borders). As our son became an independent reader, we told him that if he wanted to read more Rainbow Magic books, he’d have to read them to himself, and read them he did.

One day when he was getting ready for a playdate, he said he wanted to hide his fairy books so no one would tease him. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with liking them, but he was beginning to recognize that some other kids might. The books were hidden for a while, and then when I started teaching children’s literature and asked if I could bring them in to work to show in my class, he said “sure.” He had moved on, continuing to devour books as he raced through the Littles and Humphrey the hamster, Little Wolf and Ramona, Hank Zipzer and of course the Magic Tree House. There weren’t “girl books” and “boy books.” There were just books.

He switched to a new school in first grade, and since then the books he has brought home from the school library seem to be very gender-typed: Justice League; Big Nate; several iterations of Star Wars. He tells me which kids checked the books out before him, and which ones are waiting to get them next (kids with names like Jack and Connor and Joaquin). He does enjoy these “for boys!”–blazened titles, despite the narrowing focus of the type of reading he is supposed to like. Though part of me mourns this loss, knowing there are many less-obviously-boy-oriented books that would appeal to him too, he is still reading passionately. But how is he being socialized to fit into gender categories? And what if a kid wants (or needs) to fight the categories? How much conviction does a second-grade boy need to carry a book with a pink cover out of the library?

My interest in the presentation of gender in reading materials has shifted over the past three years as I’ve begun to contemplate literary gender roles not just from a parental perspective but also from a professional one, teaching children’s literature to future teachers. Recently, one of my college students wrote a paper referencing The Secret Garden, and as I looked for a copy of the book in the library catalog I saw cover after cover that seemed designed to appeal to a specific category of readers: bookish girls. I do believe that we should work to change society so that we don’t have these gender limitations, and indeed we should not judge books by their covers (even though we know kids do, and will continue to do so). Yet by having images and colors that play into gender norms, aren’t book covers (or the publishers who select them) judging their readers? By putting a sparkly pink cover on a Rainbow Magic fairy book, has it been preordained that only girls need bother picking it up? By highlighting the fairies and jewels and glitter, do we inadvertently approve and promote the idea that boys won’t read about girls?

I have fallen into this trap, too. When I check books out for my class, if I think they might interest my son, I put them in his room until I need them; books I think are too old for him or not to his taste I set on my desk. One day he saw The Doll People on top of my pile and asked about it. Of course I said he could look at it, and in a matter of minutes he was immersed. In a couple of days it was read, as were the others in the series as quickly as we could borrow them. What had influenced me to sort that book into the desk pile? Was it the cover art (dolls, dollhouse, even a heart-shaped lock)? The flourish-filled font? The female authors? The word doll in the title? What if it had said mini-figure instead? The subconscious notions of my adult mind didn’t speak to the real child in my house. The avowed feminist had fallen for the old stereotypical assumptions.

Yet even more layers of assumptions are inherent in this discussion, identifying children as gender normative, boy or girl. On the rare occasion when titles like 10,000 Dresses or I Am J come out in which main characters identify as transgender, these books are praised—and rightly so—for providing bibliotherapeutic relief for young people who are transgender or questioning whether they may be. But our response to books portraying transgender characters reveals that we are once again falling into old patterns of categorization. Sure, we’ve added another perspective on gender, but we still want to separate people into clear-cut groupings: either you’re transgender, or you’re not. We believe we can embrace transgender children and a male/female dichotomy simply by reassigning these children to the appropriate gender role — swapping Captain Underpants for Babymouse.

The reality, however, is that many children are gender variant (with interests and behaviors persistently outside of typical cultural gender norms) and at different points in their lives might be living or exploring at various places along the gender identity continuum (see, for example, Ruth Padawer’s article “What’s So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?” in the August 12, 2012 New York Times Magazine). Assigning labels to these places isn’t as important as having a rich understanding of the ways gender is presented in books; a rich understanding of how kids may be presenting and exploring their gender and gender identity; and the skills to connect the two.

To gain that understanding and those skills, we need to remember not to judge children by the “covers” they present. One child may be presenting as a boy only because no other option is permitted in that family. Another may present as a “girly girl” in a phase of experimentation, but may want to both wear pink and study science. Maybe we have to realize that there can be many paths to the same summit, and some of them might involve a detour through an obsession with Disney Princesses and Barbie (and the narrowed roles they suggest), as was the case for one transgender girl I know.

So I would propose that we modify our language, speaking not of “Girl Books and Boy Books,” but of books across gender. To the advice contained within the section of the same name in Roger Sutton’s essay in A Family of Readers (Candlewick), I would offer a modification (in italics below): “The best thing you can give to a would-be, could-be reader, regardless of gender, gender identity, or gender presentation, is access to a wide variety of reading possibilities among which he or she can find what seems just right, labels be damned.” And yet, peer pressure is a mighty force with which to contend, particularly for gender-variant or transgender children, who are routinely targeted for teasing and bullying. A boy who otherwise aligns with gender stereotypes may be given a pass for reading Ivy + Bean, but one who is already ridiculed for being effeminate may find taking such a risk much more dangerous.

So where do we find good books for the children along the middle of the continuum? What do we suggest to the child who feels like a girl but is called a boy (or vice versa), the kids who are exploring gender, or the ones who want to understand a friend who is exploring gender?
It’s not enough to have content with gender-diverse appeal; packaging matters too. Some authors deftly manage to weave rich characters of diverse genders into their books only to be faced with the loss of potential readers through covers that invite just one segment of the gender spectrum, such as the misleading suggestion of romantic fiction on the cover of Phoebe Stone’s engaging historical mystery, The Romeo and Juliet Code. Occasionally publishers make changes between editions, as happened with Linda Sue Park’s Keeping Score: the paperback edition sports not only a new font and image (a dog and a baseball) on the cover but a new subtitle as well, all significant improvements over the cursive lettering and girl-centric picture on the hardcover.

Gender variant girls in many ways have it easier; in my work in the schools, they are comfortable picking up Diary of a Wimpy Kid and adore the Harry Potter books with no reservations. But let’s make sure it stays that way, while opening doors for boys to explore diverse genres. Let’s damn the labels, but let’s actively try to defy them too. There are lots of great examples with titles and cover art that don’t play into the trappings of gender. Books with girls as main characters should appeal to many kids, and titles such as Rules and Out of My Mind (both with goldfish on the covers), When You Reach Me (with its clever display of symbols), and Zebrafish (with a diverse group of kids pictured) are excellent models of inviting potential readers rather that prescribing them. The Judy Moody and Stink books serve as positive examples as well, with their neutral book covers and mix of central characters. The Hunger Games series demonstrates the potential for strong sales with packaging that appeals to all readers. We do want all kids to read more, regardless of how they identify along the gender continuum. And ideally all kids will feel safe to explore gender through their reading, in order (as Roger Sutton put it in his September/October 2007 Horn Book editorial) “to independently and privately assume whatever (not whichever) genders [they] like.” And then maybe, through access to the perspectives these books provide, they can come closer to finding an authentic gender identity and, in the best-case scenario, finding an identity as a reader as well.

Books with Gender-Diverse Appeal

Anything but Typical (Simon, 2009) by Nora Raleigh Baskin [Intermediate, Middle School]
I Am J (Little, Brown, 2011) by Cris Beam [High School]
The World According to Humphrey (Putnam, 2004) by Betty G. Birney [Primary, Intermediate]
Be Who You Are (AuthorHouse, 2010) by Jennifer Carr; illus. by Ben Rumback [Primary]
Beezus and Ramona (Morrow, 1955) by Beverly Cleary; illus. by Louis Darling [Intermediate]
The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008) by Suzanne Collins [Middle School, High School]
Out of My Mind (Atheneum, 2010) by Sharon M. Draper [Intermediate]
Peter H. Reynolds and FableVision Present Zebrafish (Atheneum, 2010) by Sharon Emerson; illus. by Renée Kurilla [Intermediate, Middle School]
10,000 Dresses (Seven Stories, 2008) by Marcus Ewert; illus. by Rex Ray [Primary]
Born to Fly (Delacorte, 2009) by Michael Ferrari [Intermediate]
The Princess Knight (Scholastic, 2004) by Cornelia Funke; illus. by Kerstin Meyer [Preschool, Primary]
Hoot (Knopf, 2002) by Carl Hiaasen (also Flush (2005), Scat (2009), and Chomp (2012)) [Intermediate, Middle School]
Operation Yes (Levine/Scholastic, 2009) by Sara Lewis Holmes [Intermediate, Middle School]
Horace and Morris but Mostly Dolores (Atheneum, 1999) by James Howe; illus. by Amy Walrod [Primary]
Pinky and Rex and the Bully (Atheneum, 1996) by James Howe; illus. by Melissa Sweet [Primary]
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Amulet/Abrams, 2007) by Jeff Kinney [Intermediate, Middle School]
Rules (Scholastic, 2006) by Cynthia Lord [Intermediate]
The Doll People (Hyperion, 2000) by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin; illus. by Brian Selznick [Primary, Intermediate]
Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life (Little, Brown, 2006) by Wendy Mass [Intermediate, Middle School]
Judy Moody (Candlewick, 2000) by Megan McDonald; illus. by Peter H. Reynolds [Primary, Intermediate]
Stink (Candlewick, 2005) by Megan McDonald; illus. by Peter H. Reynolds [Primary]
The Littles (Scholastic, 1967) by John Peterson; illus. by Roberta Carter Clark [Primary]
Ten Minutes till Bedtime (Putnam, 1998) by Peggy Rathmann [Preschool]
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Levine/Scholastic, 1998) by J.K. Rowling; illus. by Mary GrandPré [Intermediate]
Bluefish (Candlewick, 2011) by Pat Schmatz [Middle School]
When You Reach Me (Lamb/Random, 2009) by Rebecca Stead [Intermediate, Middle School]
Little Wolf’s Book of Badness (Carolrhoda/Lerner, 1999) by Ian Whybrow; illus. by Tony Ross [Primary, Intermediate]
Countdown (Scholastic, 2010) by Deborah Wiles [Intermediate]
Parrotfish (Simon, 2007) by Ellen Wittlinger [High School]
Peace Locomotion (Putnam, 2009) by Jacqueline Woodson [Intermediate]
William’s Doll (Harper & Row, 1972) by Charlotte Zolotow; illus. by William Pene du Bois [Preschool, Primary]

The post Reading Along the Gender Continuum appeared first on The Horn Book.

May/June 2012

I want to thank you for publishing the piece by Hilary Rappaport (“On the Rights of Reading and Girls and Boys”). I really appreciated seeing some of my concerns about the gender divide in reading articulated so well. I have examined my biases related to literature and preferences, and have made adjustments in the way I think about them, as a result of the Guys Read movement. I’m glad for that. But I, too, am troubled by the push to further compartmentalize our young people by dividing the world of books into those for boys and those for girls.

I’m a huge fan of Jon Scieszka, but after hearing him speak at ALA in 2005, I was distressed to the point of writing him a letter, excerpted here:

I was troubled by your speech, especially considering that you spoke after a teenage boy who was gutsy enough to talk about how much he loves being in a book club and reading a huge variety of things. Not all boys (or girls, for that matter) fit the very specific gender roles you outlined. Not all boys like hockey, even if your son does. Not all boys are going to be satisfied with books that are pulled into a separate section for guys, and many girls will be less likely to pick up books if they are labeled as “guy” books.

It seems like there must be ways to validate and highlight a variety of reading while not pigeonholing people into behaving a certain way. Libraries have traditionally been a haven for boys who are not your typical “guy guys” (as James Howe puts it), and it makes me cringe to hear someone as charming and well-respected as you are implying that there is only one type of boy.

Please pass on my thanks to Hilary Rappaport for her column!

Leah Langby
Elk Mound, Wisconsin

The post Letter to the Editor from Leah Langby, July/August 2012 appeared first on The Horn Book.

Silvey’s arguments are not new; they’re just the most recent version of a decades-old debate. Controversy has dogged the Newbery Medal from its inception, always coming in the form of pointed attacks from those outside the process who are critical of the books selected for the award. Who could have guessed, when bookseller Frederic G. Melcher created the award in 1921, that people would come to care so quickly and so deeply about the books deemed “most distinguished”? That was what Melcher wanted, but I doubt it was his intention to stir things up from the get-go when he made the decision to put the award selection into the hands not of booksellers or teachers but of children’s librarians.

According to the history of the award, as told by Melcher himself, the idea for a children’s book award came to him suddenly in the midst of a meeting of the Children’s Librarians’ Section of the American Library Association (ALA) at its Annual Conference in Swampscott, Massachusetts, in 1921. He was there to promote the concept of Children’s Book Week, which he had launched with Franklin W. Mathiews, chief librarian of the Boy Scouts of America, two years earlier. “It was a great opportunity for Book Week’s pro¬motion,” recalled Melcher years later.

As I looked down from the platform at the three or four hundred people, I thought of the power they could have in encouraging the joy of reading among children. I could see that I was sure of having the librarians’ cooperation in Children’s Book Week, but I wanted to go further and secure their interest in the whole process of creating books for children, producing them, and bringing them to the children.(2)

Those most invested in Children’s Book Week at that time were booksellers, who hoped to reach parents as consumers with their campaign “More Books in the Home”—just in time for the Christmas shopping season. In 1921, children’s librarianship was still a relatively new profession, and Melcher wisely saw librarians as potential partners in getting this message out. Despite the fact that the influential children’s library leader Anne Carroll Moore had served on the Children’s Book Week committee from the beginning, other members of her profession were not entirely enthusiastic about what some booksellers were doing. At the same 1921 ALA meeting in Swampscott, the head of the Children’s Librarians’ Section, Clara Whitehill Hunt from Brooklyn Public Library, told those assembled:

I saw, last November, big advertisements of the “Week” which noted, along with excellent titles, many books which no good public library places on its shelves. I saw the names of speakers who were to appear in a certain book department each day of the week, and most of the speakers were authors whose books the ALA would not dream of putting on its approved lists.(3)

The Gimbels Book Week ad, November 1920.

A search through the New York Times during the second week of November 1920 turns up exactly the advertisements to which Hunt referred. “Kiddies! This Is Your Book Week! Bring Along the Grown-Ups to the Gimbel Celebration…You’ll find ’em all at Gimbels—so carefully selected you can’t choose wrong.” Included among the “carefully selected” books were Adventures of the Teenie Weenies and three volumes of the Boy Mechanic (“Here’s the book for any wide-awake boy”[4]). In the other ad Hunt referenced, Bloomingdales presented their program of author speakers not recommended by the ALA. For the record, they were: David Cory (author of Billy Bunny); Henry C. Walker (author of the Jimmy Bunn stories); Frank Parker Stockbridge (author of Yankee Ingenuity in the War); Dorothy Whitehill (author of the Polly Pendleton series, Twin series, etc.); Lillian E. Garis (author of the Girl Scout series); William Heyliger (author of the St. Mary, Fairview, and Boy Scouts series); Howard R. Garis (author of the Uncle Wiggly series), and Horace Wade, “the eleven-year-old author of In the Shadow of the Great Peril.”(5)

These were the very types of books children’s librarians railed against in their selection standards. Hunt herself included more than one reference to popular formula series fiction, other¬wise known at the time as “fifty-cent books,” in her list of “Don’ts” in book selection. She wrote, for example: “Don’t let those adults who point pridefully to themselves as products of a trash-reading childhood shake your determination to give today’s children better mental food than those worthy citizens had.”(6) Earlier, in a statement that echoes eerily in modern times, Hunt had explained why she thought it was so important to offer children better books: “Just so surely as America neglects to fill her children’s minds with good ideas, just so surely will those children, a few years hence, be swayed by every shrieking demagogue and yellow journal working to undermine our country.”(7)

By giving the Children’s Librarians’ Section the power to select the Newbery Medal winners, Melcher got their support for Children’s Book Week by assuring them that children’s librarians would become the key tastemakers. Just a year after her criticism of the way Children’s Book Week was taking form under Melcher’s watch, Hunt had only laudatory words for him as he handed her the first Newbery Medal to present to Hendrik Willem van Loon for The Story of Mankind. “We feel strong and powerful because you believe in us and are putting in our hands a weapon, one of the most potent of our times—publicity of the best kind.”(8)

From a children’s librarian’s standpoint, the Newbery Medal promised to lift children’s literature to higher standards, or, as pioneering children’s editor May Massee described it, to “rescue it from mediocrity.”(9) Given this, it’s not surprising that popularity was not a criterion for selection—in fact, quite the opposite. To these librarians, popularity meant “poor style, poor binding, narrow margins, pulpy paper.”(10) Rather, the focus for the Newbery Medal has always been on distinguished books—whatever “distinguished” means to the group of children’s librarians making the selection each year. From the beginning, the term was left intentionally vague: “Because creative talent cannot and should not be confined to any pattern, the words ‘most distinguished’ were wisely undefined and unqualified, so that no limitations were placed upon the character of the book.”(11) But the terms have always included a sentence about what “distinguished” does not mean: “The award is not for popularity.”(12)

While the Newbery Medal, for the most part, was widely embraced almost immediately by librarians, teachers, publishers, booksellers, the press, and the general public, there was one group that was, not surprisingly, unhappy with the award: those who wrote popular series fiction. The authors of “boys’ books,” in particular, grumbled about the “blood-thirsty”(13) librarians who knew nothing about real boys and what their reading interests were. How could these women possibly be entrusted to decide what books were best for children? (And by children, of course, they meant boys.) Louise Latimer, director of work with children at the Washington, DC, Public Library, addressed these sorts of charges in a talk she gave to the Children’s Librarians’ Section at the 1924 Annual Conference in Saratoga Springs, New York.

I believe I can go further and assert that few fathers, if any, and few leaders of boys, if any, could tell you as accurately and sympathetically—not sentimentally, mind you—what a boy likes to read as a children’s librarian of many years’ experience. This is not remarkable, for more boys and boys of more types pass thru her hands, and she has their own testimony to support her opinions.

We cannot help but recognize, however, that the points of view connoted in these expressions (“high-brow,” “old maid,” etc.), have made a consistent approach to standards difficult. Have we let such criticism lower our standards in book selection? It is only as we have done that or as it has weakened our position in the community as judges of reading for young people that such criticism matters.(14)

Latimer’s last comment is especially interesting in light of the early criticism of the Newbery Award winners. At the time of her writing, there had been only three winners selected: The Story of Mankind, The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle, and The Dark Frigate—robust nonfiction, humorous fantasy/adventure, and a high-sea adventure. All were written by male authors and have a distinctly male point of view. A critic at the time would have been hard-pressed to claim that none of these were “boys’ books.” In fact, the next five Newbery Medal books were all written from male perspectives by male authors, and they include a war story (Gay-Neck, the Story of a Pigeon), a Western (Smoky, the Cowhorse), and historical fiction (The Trumpeter of Krakow), all mainstays in the reading preferences of boys. Were children’s librarians involved in the earliest selection of Newbery Medal books subconsciously looking for books to counter the charges, as Latimer feared might happen?

“Robust” boy books of the 1920s.

We’ll probably never know, but what happened over the next ten years is curious. After nearly a decade’s worth of boys’ books written by male authors, the second decade of Newbery Medal winners were all written by women, and many of them were classified as girls’ books in their times. By 1939, author Howard Pease had had enough. As an invited speaker at an ALA preconfer¬ence on children’s reading hosted by the Section for Library Work with Children, the author best known for his high-sea adventure books (popular with boys) delivered what amounted to a misogynistic rant to an audience of four hundred children’s librarians, most of whom were women. He berated them for creating a children’s book world controlled by women and feminine values. He was especially critical of the books most prized by children’s librarians. “All the models held up today are girls’ books. All the qualities demanded of writers today are feminine qualities—the delicate, the fragile, the beautiful, the poetic, the whimsical, the quaint, the fairylike.”(15)

“Nostalgic” girl books of the 1930s.

Pease’s speech raised the eyebrows and the ire of the women in attendance who, understandably, found his remarks insulting. In his own report of the event, Frederic Melcher refuted the assertion that women are not good judges of “red-blooded” adventure stories and pointed out that fewer men write for children because there is less money in it. But, he noted, the successful children’s writer might make more money in the long run as the books bring in greater royalties over time. He put out a call for more men to write children’s books: “One of the objectives before publishers of children’s books may well be to find more men who have something to say and know how to write to compete in a field where women writers outnumber them two to one.”(16)

As the father of the Newbery Medal, Melcher artfully walked the fine line between both sides of the argument in an attempt to pacify librarians and authors, and that might have been the end of it. But a few months later, in the October 1939 issue of Elementary English Review, educator and school library advocate C. C. Certain stirred the pot again. In an editorial titled “What Are Little Boys Made Of?” he took on the Newbery Medal at full force, charging that the winners represented “a kind of faded prettiness,” particularly in the last decade. “Just imagine, if you can, the average tousle-headed American boy, or for that matter, his girl counterpart, sitting down for an hour to read Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright (Newbery Award, 1939), or Roller Skates by Ruth Sawyer, or Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink…”(17) As the most recent Newbery winner at the time, Thimble Summer was held up as an example of a particularly bad Newbery Award winner. “Garnet [Thimble Summer’s protagonist] over and over again loses herself to young readers in mature reflection and adult parlance.”(18) Mr. Certain, on the other hand, was pleased with the Newbery choices of the 1920s, citing The Dark Frigate and The Story of Mankind as books he could imagine the “average American boy” reading “with zest.”(19) Although she was writing about different books, Silvey would make essentially the same argument nearly sixty years later in “Has the Newbery Lost Its Way?” saying that the most recent winners were “particularly disappointing” especially in comparison to the winners from the previous decade, which were much more popular with children.

Certain revisited his complaints in the next issue of Elementary English Review, in an “Open Forum on the Newbery Award,” inviting readers to join him in a discussion of the award. He makes his own opinion clear: “The children themselves cannot but be disappointed in books that are so highly sentimental and reminiscent of childhood. Confronted with these award books, they will come to regard all literature as ‘sissy.’”(20)

Letters poured in to the Elementary English Review in response. Most, at least of those quoted in the April 1940 issue,(21) agreed with Certain’s arguments. And, like Certain, they believed the problem could be remedied by having teachers and school librarians choose the Newbery Medal winners instead. They felt that teachers were less likely to be sentimental and more likely to be in touch with the reading tastes and abilities of real children. There was a general agreement among those who wrote in that the Newbery Medal was being awarded by the wrong people to the wrong books, but Certain noted that few were brave enough to say so publicly. In fact, he wrote that many of the letters the Elementary English Review had received were anonymous. This also corresponds with Silvey’s report in which the people she interviewed would only speak out against the Newbery Medal on condition of anonymity. It’s not clear why teachers and school librarians—now or then—with valid concerns about how the Newbery Medal winner was selected were so afraid to speak out. Are children’s librarians really such a fearsome bunch? Howard Pease obviously didn’t think so.

The children’s librarians shot back with their own letters to the editor of the Elementary English Review, which were included in April 1940’s “Open Forum.” Quoted at length were letters from the chair and vice-chair of the Section for Library Work with Children, of particular interest because both would have been in leadership positions on the Newbery committee at that time. Irene Smith, who in 1940 was vice-chair of the Section for Library Work with Children and thus chair of the Newbery committee, revealed that she had written to Melcher, assuring him that “this year’s committee will seek earnestly for literary masculinity, but whether or not we shall find it remains to be seen.”(22) (What they found was Daniel Boone by James Daugherty, the 1940 winner. Literary masculinity was, in fact, found in the next four years as well, with Call It Courage, The Matchlock Gun, Adam of the Road, and Johnny Tremain.) A year later, in the May 1941 issue, more letters to the editor were printed under the title “The Newbery Award Again.” Betty Hamilton, a children’s librarian from Atlanta, called Certain on his sexism: “And why do the editor and others complain when a good book for girls wins the Medal? Why shouldn’t a girl’s book win? Don’t girls read?”(23)

The war of words continued for three years and even spilled over onto the pages of other journals. In 1942 the vice-chair of the Section for Library Work with Children, Clara E. Breed, asked for a “Plea for Understanding” in an article about the Newbery Medal she published in Wilson Library Bulletin. She was convinced that there would be less criticism of the Newbery Medal if people only understood the process by which it was chosen (something she explained in great detail) and the original purpose: to select the most distinguished book of the year.

Indeed the complaints about the Newbery Medal usually insist that the medal be something it is not. Elementary teachers say the books chosen are too old, junior high teachers that the books are too young. An author of boys’ books says the books are too feminine and too tender-minded. A parent objects that the selections too often have been books with foreign backgrounds. A school administrator suggests the books would be better made “if teachers, parents, children, and an artist or two were involved in the selection.” Sometimes it seems as if all these people had joined hands and were chanting in unison: “The Newbery books are not popular.” (When has Webster defined “most distinguished” as “most popular”?)[24]

In spite of the fact that the award terms have always made the award’s purpose clear, Breed and others who have come to the Newbery Medal’s defense have had to remind us again and again that it is not an award for popularity. The most recent defense came in 2008 in direct response to Silvey’s article and was pointedly titled “Captain Underpants Doesn’t Need a Newbery Medal.” Its author, Erica Perl, a children’s writer and elementary-school creative writing teacher, would have made Clara Whitehill Hunt proud: “We already have plenty of ways to track the most popular children’s books. Shouldn’t the field’s most prestigious honor aim higher?”(25)

Few librarians today would make the argument their forebears made that “trash reading” is somehow harmful to young readers. We would even hesitate to call popular formula series fiction “trash” these days. Most of us are perfectly comfortable with the idea of Captain Underpants keeping company on the shelves with Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Our attitude toward “popular” books has certainly changed since the Newbery Medal was first created, but our mission to find the most “distinguished book” of the year remains the same.

But why do we bother, when we are constantly reminded by Newbery critics that nobody wants to read most of the books that have won? “Who cares that the books aren’t popular?” asked the ever-provocative Dorothy Broderick back in 1960. She characterized the Newbery Medal as “a means of honoring an author who has offered an important insight in life. This gift of insight cannot be measured by the number of readers. If it can be measured at all, it is in terms of its impact on the few readers of each year or decade who come to it with the back¬ground and intelligence to absorb the author’s statement.”(26)

Has the Newbery lost its way? I don’t think so. It’s just more often than not chosen the road less traveled in its search for distinguished.

Endnotes
1. Silvey, Anita. “Has the Newbery Lost Its Way?” School Library Journal 54:10 (October 2008), p. 40.
2. Melcher, Frederic G., quoted in A History of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals by Irene Smith. Viking Press, 1957, p. 36.
3. Hunt, Clara Whitehill. “Children’s Book Week: A Librarian’s Point of View,” Publishers Weekly 100:1 (July 9, 1921), p. 69.
4. New York Times, November 17, 1920, p. 9.
5. New York Times, November 14, 1920, p. E 17.
6. Hunt, Clara Whitehill. Library Work with Children. Revised. (Manual of Library Economy Number XXIX) ALA. 1924, p. 6.
7. Hunt, Clara Whitehill, quoted in “Children’s Books,” by Wilhelmina Harper, The Library Journal 48:17 (October 1, 1923), p. 807.
8. Hunt, Clara Whitehill, quoted in A History of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals by Irene Smith. Viking Press, 1957, p. 45.
9. Masee, May, quoted in “The Sayers Institute” by Claire Nolte, Library Journal 64:14 (August 1939), p. 588.
10. Hunt. Library Work with Children, p. 7.
11. Breed, Clara E. “The Newbery Medal: A Plea for Understanding,” Wilson Library Bulletin 16:9 (May 1942), p. 724.
12. “Newbery Medal Terms and Criteria,” Asso¬ciation for Library Service to Children website. Retrieved April 27, 2012. www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberyterms/newberyterms.
13. Eaton, Walter Prichard. “How Much Red in the Boy’s Book?” Publisher’s Weekly 106:16 (October 18, 1924), p. 1375.
14. Latimer, Louise P. “They Who Get Slapped,” The Library Journal 49:13 (July 1924), p. 625.
15. Pease, Howard. “Children’s Books Today: One Man’s View,” Proceedings of the Institute on Library Work with Children. School of Librarianship/Uni¬versity of California, 1939, p. 7.
16. Melcher, Frederic G. “Men Wanted?” Publishers Weekly 136:1 (July 1, 1939), p. 7.
17. Certain, C. C. “What Are Little Boys Made Of?” Elementary English Review 16:6 (October 1939), p. 247.
18. Ibid.
19. Ibid.
20. “Open Forum on the Newbery Award,” Elemen¬tary English Review 16:7 (November 1939), p. 283.
21. “The Newbery Award: Open Forum,” Elemen¬tary English Review 17:4 (April 1940), p. 160-162.
22. Smith, Irene. Letter to the Editor in “The Newbery Award: Open Forum,” Elementary English Review 17:4 (April 1940), p. 162.
23. Hamilton, Betty. Letter to the Editor in “The Newbery Award Again,” Elementary English Review 18:5 (May 1941), p. 193.
24. Breed. “The Newbery Medal: A Plea for Understanding,” p. 725.
25. Perl, Erica. “Captain Underpants Doesn’t Need a Newbery Medal,” Slate, December 19, 2008. Retrieved April 22, 2012. www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2008/12/captain_underpants_doesnt_need_a_newbery_medal.single.html.
26. Broderick, Dorothy M. “The Newbery Award Is Not a Popularity Contest,” Library Journal 85:6 (March 15, 1960), p. 1281.

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For more on boys and girls, take a look at Hilary Rappaport’s “On the Rights of Reading and Girls and Boys,” which will be published in the May/June issue of The Horn Book Magazine but which we’ve put online now for all you engaged in the most recent guys’-reading debate.

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I have never liked the lists of “boy books” and “girl books” that appear in libraries, parenting magazines, educational handouts, and even make up whole books themselves. There always seems to be a note included that the choices can be enjoyed by both genders, and yet there continue to be separate lists. As a feminist, it drives me crazy that we are still talking this way, but it is more than that. The separation doesn’t make sense to me because it does not match my experiences reading books with boys and girls.

I have been reading aloud to kids and discussing their reading in book groups, as well as reading with my sons, for the past fifteen years. I have yet to have a child tell me they disliked a book we have read because they thought it was either “for girls” or “for boys.” The secret is that it simply has to be a good book.

It is sad to think that girls who read the Laura Ingalls Wilder series and the books of Louisa May Alcott would miss out on reading Treasure Island or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Or vice versa.

When my boys were very young, I never gave the gender of characters a second thought. I just read as many wonderful stories as possible to them. I noticed that picture books had far more male characters than female. It doesn’t get more fun than Dr. Seuss, but there are few admirable heroines in his stories. I did not, however, notice my two sons caring whether the lead character was a male or female person, or for that matter, as was often the case, a male or female animal. Do we hold the animals in E. B. White’s books or those of Robert Lawson to rigid gender stereotypes? Do children think about the fact that Charlotte is a girl who is the truest friend to Wilbur, a boy? I don’t think that is their focus.

As my sons grew and we read more chapter books, the gender of the characters continued to make no difference. They loved the silly Pippi Longstocking and the fierce Ramona as much as they did little Sam Krupnik in Lois Lowry’s series. As a result, they had the opportunity to laugh at and admire kids not all that different from themselves. I remember the special joy they experienced when, as second graders, they could be hysterical about the antics of a preschooler. It was such fun to see them looking back at their past. And it made no difference if it was a boy or a girl; it just had to be funny. I don’t think kids care if the main characters in the Roald Dahl books are male or female; they eagerly jump from Charlie and James to Matilda and Sophie. The kids I know insist on reading them all.

In many of the early children’s classics we read, such as those of E. Nesbit, it is a group of children, both male and female, who have the major roles and adventures. C. S. Lewis sends two girls and two boys into the wardrobe to Narnia. Does anyone ask this gender question about Harry, Ron, and Hermione?

There are so many books I want to share with my sons that no matter how much reading we do (and we do a lot), I have lists in my head that we will never be able to complete together. That is what got me started on our read-aloud summer of “‘Girl’ Books I Didn’t Want My Boys to Miss.” We started with The Secret Garden, which really shouldn’t be considered a girls’ book because two of the three main characters are boys. It is a book, however, about feelings. Not only did my sons love it, but my husband didn’t want me to begin the reading until he was home. So I decided to see how far I could push this idea of mine. If you are setting up a girls’ book category, nothing fits better than A Little Princess. Well, all I can say is that my three male listeners were as enamored of it as they were of the others by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The fact is they were responding to the beautiful writing and not to the gender of the characters (in an all-girls school). Could I go still further? Yes, even my much-loved Fossil sisters in Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes (and then Theater Shoes) were a hit in my house—though it was not the ballet but the portrayal of theater in England to which my family was drawn.

As we began reading aloud Little House in the Big Woods, I found myself stunned that this was considered a girls’ book. Laura and Mary may be the heroines, but if you want to stick to stereotypes, has anyone noticed how much of this book is about the technical construction of homes and barns and icehouses or how many pages are devoted to guns and hunting and defending oneself? (What we noticed most about the book in the series about Almanzo’s childhood, Farmer Boy, was all the food!)

We also read Heidi and began seriously planning a family vacation in the Swiss Alps, which exceeded all our dreams when we were able to make it happen more than three years later. (My son ran through the fields of flowers, announcing he had made it to “Heidiland!”) In any case, this summer reading series continued a good deal past the summer and answered both my questions and my prayers.

Some might argue that the men in my family are in the minority and that the children in book groups are not a random sample, and that all may be true. But I have spent a lot of time considering the powerful negative impacts of generalizations. There is no need to reinforce the ideas of differences between the sexes. Those ideas are still widespread and deeply engrained in our culture. There are, however, serious reasons to protect those in the minority and serious dangers in encouraging people, particularly children, to believe that they belong to a somehow “deviant” group.

Our children—both boys and girls—lose when we constrain their reading preferences. Ironically, what is acceptable in books for girls today is a much wider range of characters and themes, thanks to the advances of feminism, while what is acceptable for boys is still sadly influenced by what I assume is homophobia and an intolerance of effeminacy. A girl reading Homer Price, Sherlock Holmes, or anything by Robert Louis Stevenson or Mark Twain would be viewed as a reader of classics, but a boy reading much of Louisa May Alcott, the Brontës, or Jane Austen would have a harder time with his image. Girls, at the same time, are harmed by believing boys cannot be interested in female heroines and authors.

Of course, some boys may want to read books about boys and some girls, books about girls. I would hope, though, that we could let those choices be truly free. Let’s stop dividing into blue and pink pages. Let’s protect every person’s right to read what they love.

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In a highly scientific study, I asked my own seven year old to read the first in the series. At first he was confused by being allowed to write in it (apparently I’ve successfully imparted the importance of respecting one’s books—hooray!), but once he got over that, I watched as his ideas, like the authors’, seemed to get sillier and sillier on every page. Lack of artistic talent (don’t tell him I said that) aside, he flipped that book around until every inch of white space had words or pictures. When he was done, he beamed, “Look at the book I wrote!” Reader and writer in one fell swoop? Nice touch.

And pretty smart marketing too: once the pages are filled with the ephemera of a second grader’s disturbing little mind, the book can’t be passed around from friend to friend for reuse. So, I am going to take credit for starting a new craze in at least one second grade. Nosy Crow, if you’re wondering, the answer is yes, if you insist, I will accept a commission…

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I was drawn to Sterling Watson’s Fighting in the Shade (Akashic, August) specifically because I probably wouldn’t have given it a second glance as a teenager. Viewing the effects of hazing through the prism of a high school football team, Watson thoughtfully examines teenage boys’ struggles with such cultural rites of passage. Like all new team members, protagonist Billy is subjected to annual hazing rituals. He is forced to succumb to the humiliation or risk ostracism from his peers and his small town, where football is paramount. When he chooses to walk away from a brutal incident, he’s doomed to be an outsider.

Fighting in the Shade is more than just a sports novel. The plot has depth, and the pace is dynamic up until the (somewhat anticlimactic) ending.  Billy is passionate, loyal, and strong, but at times vulnerable, making him a relatable protagonist for young male readers. Though some of the dialogue struck me as more 2011 than 1964, Watson contrasts lighthearted teenage banter on the field with disturbing, poignant moments of mortification. He effectively illustrates society’s expectations of young men and highlights the challenges for those, like Billy, who confront masculine norms.

I’ve also got to give Watson a shout-out for making space in such a male-dominated text to portray two powerful female voices: a rebellious and passionate schoolteacher and Billy’s classmate Moira. Both characters were a refreshing addition to the testosterone-heavy drama. And after all, I’ll always look back nostalgically on the Mias and Melindas of my high-school reading days…

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But I have to admit that the whole time I was reading it I felt, this is a kids’ book, and not in a good way. The first-person narrative is completely straightforward, reliable, and chronological; the prose seems to be at a fourth-grade reading level; there is no nuance or ambiguity in the characters. It’s far more cheerful and far less subtle than any current science fiction published for teens. Honestly, I felt like I was back with Danny Dunn, good times indeed.

Why was it was published as an adult book? Yes, yes, labels are for clothes or however that slogan went, but had I gone into it thinking it was a children’s book (and even with a scant mention of masturbation, it feels younger than most of today’s YA) I would have thought it was solid reluctant-reader (by which we mean boy-reader) fare. But as an adult book, it seems kind of dopey. But shouldn’t I find it dopey either way?

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On a related note, have you ever noticed how much the menfolk of the children’s book biz love to count things? Ask Peter Sieruta or Jonathan Hunt or Ray Barber about  what-won-what-when-and-how-many-times and prepare to be amazed. Maybe Travis Jonker should design some Newbery-Caldecott trading cards, complete with stats on the backs.

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