Children’s books

I got my daughter a collection of old girl’s annuals from the fifties to the eighties. A little bit maintaining expected values, but they do have stories of girls going out and doing interesting and exciting things.

And I've just ordered a copy of Mr Nick's Knitting, it's out of print but there are second hand copies out there!
Great thread 📚

whispersofwickedness A House In The Woods is one of my favourite children's books and I give copies away as presents all the time. Just fantastic.

The Wild Girl by Chris wormell
Amazing Grace
Handa's Surprise
Izzy Gizmo
Rosie's Walk
The Day Louis Got Eaten

So many fantastic books. And like previous posters, I substitute female pronouns every time, and similarly if we see a cat/fish/bird etc when out and about, I will assume it's female unless we know our can tell otherwise. The male as default is everywhere, so my tiny efforts are a drop in the ocean, but it's a start!

The Story of Alison Hubble is a lovely, funny book with a girl character front and centre.

for pre-school Come Away from the Water Shirley by John Burningham (girl has imaginary adventures as a pirate at the seaside) and Pearl Power by Mel Elliott (girl starts a new school).
Chapter books for older readers - The Princess in Black - super hero princess and Chris Riddell's Otteline series about a girl detective.

A house in the woods by Inga Moore is delightful, it's about a group of 4 animals who build themselves a house. Two are male and two are female and both sexes take an equal role in building the house. It's so lovely, I'll never get tired of reading that one.
Also, we have one called Mr Nick's knitting. Admittedly, the title does only mention the man in the story, but other than that, it is pretty good, it's about an older woman and man who have made friends on a commuter train because they both love knitting. Then the woman ends up in hospital and the man knits her a blanket with pictures of their views from the train to help cheer her up and make her feel better while she's convalescing 😊

Ok. Picture books list - I’ve only chosen ones with central female characters that are specifically counter to stereotypes but generally I think go for quality of book more than absolute political purity - eg will take anything by Shirley Hughes over 99% of all picture books any day...

Mrs Armitage series by Quentin Blake (mechanical hilarious central character who is blessed with unconventional looks)

Winnie the witch (even hairy legs (!))

You must try to get hold of anything by Carol Ann Duffy - most of these are out of print. Especially Queen Munch and Queen Nibble, Moon Zoo and Underwater Farmyard, The Skipping Rope Snake

The Paperbag princess and Babette Cole’s Princess Smarty pants - for kickass princesses

My children also loved Olivia (? Can’t remember author) and the Madeline series although these are less overtly anti stereotypes

Two more things: also a good idea to think about central male characters doing non stereotypical male things (The Snowy Day is my favourite eg) and I’d avoid those “famous women through history!” ones that are so trendy as much as you can. They don’t tend to be interesting for children and you want to avoid preaching.

Let me know if you want more post the picture book stage.

His Dark Materials is mentioned above. I enjoyed that until Pullman started describing Lyra kissing the boy character. It turns my stomach that man has to sexualise the girl he is writing about. If she's old enough to be sexually active, why no mention of how she manages when she has a period or anything else to do with being a teenage girl? Not part of his fantasy I guess.

I understand it's deeply annoying but I'm not sure I would worry at this stage.

DD is now 9, and reads a mixture of books with boy and girl protagonists but absolutely loves Jacqueline Wilson. We had an interesting discussion the other day about how JW always centres girls in her writing. But when she was a baby I just read whatever.

www.amazon.co.uk/DC-Super-Heroes-First-Power/dp/1941367038/ref=pd_bxgy_14_3/262-6813261-0836423?psc=1&pf_rd_p=07e3e597-b71b-4701-a3fd-d79c50f48406&_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_wg=riuFY&pf_rd_r=2386PK205M38SGAHK6DY&pd_rd_i=1941367038&pd_rd_w=Se95N&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&refRID=2386PK205M38SGAHK6DY&pd_rd_r=3c0195ba-70e1-11e9-8c5a-d706e463e9e0 I want this for myself

wordery.com/little-feminist-board-book-set-emily-kleinman-9780735353817?currency=GBP&gtrck=cVQ3WWxZcis2KzY5TmJsWjFCcmtvYzlJKzluOWpUZXkwbWRzdWp6VGNsSll5eEtUWnFvVGxWOEVrUDFrTXlzZFZ3N3crWWE0OGtpV2xHUG9aNXViUXc9PQ&gclid=CjwKCAjw2cTmBRAVEiwA8YMgzU-ufvSjlNbuE9Y7ZwEXPU--bEkZn0nbJgs9vdxQcQgX7swqyy8qZRoC7_UQAvD_BwE In terms of Actual Feminist (tm) books, I would go for something like this

SuperLoud Five Minutes Peace is good (and funny for parents) but the others in the series are awful. One book features fat shaming and Mrs Large going on a diet, while the other one is about how hopeless Mr Large is at childcare!

My DD and her friends currently adore “The Worst Witch”.
“Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf” was one of my favourites.
And who can forget Lyra from “His Dark Materials”?
The Sally Lockhart series and “The Firework Maker’s Daughter” are also Philip Pullman books with strong female leads.

Probably a bit advanced for a 3 month old but worth bearing in mind for when she’s older.

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004IPQTSA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1&tag=mumsnetforu03-21 this is one I loved when I was small.

Jill murphy's books eg 5 minutes peace are in board book form.
The female character is a mum and does perform childcare related tasks.
But I feel like she's given a bit of an identity.

Zog was the one that sprang immediately to my mind - although the strong female lead bit passed DD2 by as she just thinks dragons are cool.

I think it does get better as they get older in a way - things like Matilda that was mentioned earlier.

To be honest I just verbally nitpicked the gender norms away when we read them for bedtime stories, moving into discussing how social norms had changed in an age appropriate way as we got older. DD2 in particular is very clear in liking what the hell she wants to like and bugger gender norms - to the point that school had a medieval day - princesses, kings and knights dress up and she rocked up as a dragon.

We have Ada Twist, Scientist, very good. There are others in a similar vein.

Also the Paper Bag princess, and we have a few of the dream big stories, we have Ada Cole and Emmeline Pankhurst.

Of course it's an issue. Even when the lead is female, often everyone else is male. See Meg and Mog.

I’m really surprised by all the responses saying it’s not an issue - I notice this massively with my preschool aged children’s books. The default is for all the main characters to be male.

Be careful of Julia Donaldson - Zog is good as is the snail on the tail of the whale one, and the one with a witch is pretty good but some of the others are very sexist imo (eg avoid the scarecrows wedding)

Don’t kiss the frog is another one to look at OP. The thing I don’t like about this one is that as a pp said about some books it starts of from a position of sexism where princesses are supposed to be pretty etc and then the story tells you about a princess that bucks the trend, but it’s not just a normal story with the sexism removed.

Princess Daisy and the nincompoop knights as a pp mentioned is good imo. Again there is underlying sexism but the story handles it pretty well imo.

The Pongwiffy series of books are lovely - about a witch and her friends, very funny. My DDs loved them when they were kids.

Later on - any of the Tiffany Aching books by Terry Pratchett where the main character is a strong female lead who is cleverer than all the men around her.
Roald Dahl has some wonderful female characters - Matilda, Sophie (BFG), The Witches (baddies but still great)

In picture books: I love you Blue Kangaroo by Emma Chichester Clark, female protagonist and adorable book.
The Unicorn Prince: sounds like a male oriented book but actually the heroine is female - admittedly kind and caring but still good.
It’s not out quite yet (July) but Brenda is a Sheep by Morag Hood is really funny and a female lead.
The Bandit Queen by Natalia O’Hara
Canonball Coralie and the Lion by Grace Easton

Hotel Flamingo by Alex Latimer (5yrs +)

Totally agree with Pippi Longstocking, she’s a great, strong female character.

www.cartoonkate.co.uk/dont-call-me-princess-page/

Julia Donaldson (while they are lovely to read aloud and my dc love/loved them) drives me mad in the sexism regard. It wouldn't have taken much for one of the animals in the Gruffalo to be a she. (I know the Gruffalo's Child is female, but come on). And there are two books - Stick Man and Tabby McTat - about the male figure having adventures and going on their quest while the female waits at home.