Books Are for Everyone

Chris Mills:

As a bookseller my heart sank into my boots every time a customer asked for the ‘boys’ or the ‘girls’ books. I used to do my best to convince people that there’s no such thing; that stories are for everyone but I wasn’t always successful.

Here’s a recent post (re-blogged from the young bookbug in our household) about the campaign to change hearts and minds….

Originally posted on Stand Strong Girls:

British authors, publishers and bookshops are supporting a campaign to stop children’s books being labelled as ‘for boys’ or ‘for girls’. The Let Books Be Books  project was launched a couple of weeks ago by the Let Toys BeToys campaign who support gender neutral toys.

It has already gained a lot of support in its efforts. Publishers Parragon and Usborne have promised to stop producing titles labelled ‘for girls’ or ‘for boys’. Waterstones back the project along with a lot of authors. These include Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials trilogy; poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy; children’s laureate, Malorie Blackman and the former children’s laureate Anne Fine.

Illustrated classics for boys published by Usborne

A petition asking children’s publishers to ‘stop labelling books, in the title or on the packaging, as for girls or for boys’ has gathered over 4,000 signatures.  The project is now looking at shops…

View original 432 more words