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Feminist children’s books

38 replies

SugarOrSweetenerWithTheTea · 04/05/2020 06:50

Can I have some recommendations of books for my 5 year old? (For me to read to her)
Apparently goodnight stories for rebel girls has a boy in it. Daring to use the girls toilets Hmm

OP posts:
Patte · 05/05/2020 07:15

"Nobody Owns The Sky" tells the true story of Bessie Coleman, the first woman of African American origin to hold a pilot's licence, for about this age. Fair warning, she does die in a plane crash, but it doesn't dwell on that, it's not nightmare fuel imo.

FWRLurker · 05/05/2020 04:25

IDK if you have them in the UK but my daughter who’s seven loves the comic / graphic novel series phoebe and her unicorn.

The MC Phoebe is a really realistic portrayal of just a regular, somewhat dorky kid who happens to be a girl... the usual kid drama but also she does gross and goofy stuff and likes bad jokes and stupid pranks - you know, the fun things usually reserved for boys. It’s Calvin and Hobbes esque, bc she has a unicorn pal and 80% of it is just the two of them interacting.

LucretiaBourgeois · 05/05/2020 00:26

The Happy Families books by Janet and Alan Ahlberg are really good for going against stereotypes - see Mrs Plug the Plumber, Ms Vole the Vet, Miss Dose the Doctors' [sic] Daughter and others.

Zog by Julia Donaldson is great too - contains a very assertive and capable princess who refuses to sit around the palace "in a silly, frilly dress" because she's determined to be a doctor.

june2007 · 04/05/2020 23:54

Princess Smart pants is good.

MotherForkinShirtBalls · 04/05/2020 23:42

I love Katie Morag. Also Zog.

FemaleAndLearning · 04/05/2020 23:18

A chair for my mother
I really liked this as the little girl lives with her mum and grandma. It is really hard to get books where there is a single mum. They save their spare change to buy a chair for worn out mum. It's good to open up issues about poverty and different types of family.

Feminist children’s books
StillWeRise · 04/05/2020 22:30

ah yes, Katie Morag
there's a great pic of her mum casually breastfeeding in one book. And Granny Island looks like she takes no shit.

northender · 04/05/2020 22:23

And agree with Phoenix re picking books low on gender stereotyping

northender · 04/05/2020 22:22

I loved reading Katie Morag books with dd at that age

Lowhum · 04/05/2020 22:20

The Girls by Lauren Ace. Lovely picture book for a 5 year old about girls who ‘grow into women’ and live different lives but stay friends. It is subtle in its messages, so up to you as a parent to discuss the story as in depth as you would like.
It is diverse but I wouldn’t consider it woke.

PhoenixBuchanan · 04/05/2020 07:38

I don't really like didactic children's books (even when it comes to feminism!) but a few of that "type" we have are:
-Rosie Revere, Engineer (or anything in that series)
-Interstellar Cinderella
-Pearl Power
-How the Library not the Prince Saved Rapunzel

I do love the Paper Bag Princess, and Little Red by Bethan Woolvin. But mainly I favour books that avoid gender stereotypes, but aren't necessarily "feminist". My 5 year old loves the Katie Morag books and I love old Shirley Hughes from the 80s.

FiddlefigOnTheRoof · 04/05/2020 07:26

Piggybook
Princess Smartypants

1066vegan · 04/05/2020 06:55

The paperbag princess (Robert Munsch) and the tough princess (Martin Waddell) are both good for a 5 year old.

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