12.03.14 | Charlotte Eyre - The Bookseller
Support has been expressed in the wider children’s publishing industry for a move to stop designating books as either for boys or for girls.Campaign group Let Toys Be Toys last week launched a petition to encourage publishers to drop what it calls “limiting labels” on books, with publishers Usborne, Igloo and Buster Books, owned by Michael O’Mara Books, among those it is targeting. The campaigners argued that gender labelling is lazy and could even lead to bullying.
Sarah Odedina, m.d. at Hot Key Books, said gendered front covers can deny children the opportunity to read something unexpected and enjoyable. “To simply brand a book with a storyline that might appeal to girls with pink and glitter just seems a bit lazy,” she said.
Agent Madeleine Millburn agreed, saying labels impose unnecessary restrictions. “There will be girls who read about sports cars and boys who read about ponies, so make this mainstream, not closeted reading that can target bullying.”
Several publishers pointed out that there are some differences in girl/boy subject preferences but that they are careful not to reflect that on book covers. As Kate Wilson, m.d. of Nosy Crow, said: “Packaging is not the same as content, and there are ways of delivering different ideas and messages quite subtly, even in books that look as if they are gender skewed.” Nosy Crow is also not afraid to challenge traditional gender-specific stories, so in the book Princess and the Peas by Sarah Warburton, the heroine decides being a princess is not all it’s cracked up to be, she added.
Barefoot Book co-founder Tessa Strickland said she is more likely to recommend a book about pirates than princesses for an eight-year-old boy but that publishing by gender is wrong. “We certainly wouldn’t box in the book we publish or the buying decisions of our customers by categorising the books themselves,” she said.
Publisher Parragon said it had already ceased publishing titles specifically for either gender. Children's publisher Rachel Lawrence said: "My team haven't created new gender specific titles for at least a year. The reason is that I'm trying to engage with the widest possible audience and most children have a variety of interests."
Jon Howells, communications manager at Waterstones, said the retailer doesn’t buy this sort of book centrally or think there’s a need for books aimed at boys or girls. Children’s bookseller Letterbox Library is also backing the campaign.
The Let Books be Books now has almost 3,000 signatures. Usborne, targeted in the campaign, has said it will no longer publish gender-specific titles. However, Michael O’Mara, also targeted, has said it is a “fact of life” that people continue to shop for one sex or the other when purchasing children’s books. O’Mara said that websites such as Amazon showed that people were still searching using terms such as “books for girls” or “books for boys”, and that the company’s books designated that way sold more on Amazon than those that were not. Igloo has declined to comment.
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