The Guardian reports that in response to a petition from an
eight-year-old reader arguing that ‘no books should be “for girls” or “for
boys”’, Scholastic UK said it will no longer publish anything new that is pitched
at girls or boys in the title, with any backlist titles to be reissued with new
covers on reprint. The publisher has also removed gendered questions from its
online recommendation tool ‘book wizard’. The petition, which had more than 80
signatures, was sent with the support of campaign group Let Books Be Books.
"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," said the
publisher in a statement.
Ladybird publishers as of November 2014 also dropped gender specific titles, they will no longer publish books like Favourite Stories for Boys and Favourite Stories for Girls.
It is the seventh publisher
to commit to the Let
Books Be Books campaign which is urging "boys" and
"girls" labels to be removed to enable children to choose freely what
kind of story and activity books interest them.
And the other side of the argument:
A leading children’s
publisher has said he will not bow to pressure to stop labelling books for
either girls or boys – because it is a “fact of life” that people search for
gifts according to gender. Michael
O’Mara, whose company owns children’s publisher Buster Books, defended selling
gender-specific titles such as The Beautiful Girls’ Colouring Book and The
Brilliant Boys’ Colouring Book, saying they were easier to sell than unisex
editions.
What do you think?
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