To think all female children’s authors should write books with girls in

[Bigmango]

I find it so depressing how many children’s books feature only boys or at least boys in the main role. I recently read a book about pirates to my daughter where every one of the four main characters was a boy (for absolutely no reason - it would have made no difference to the storyline if one or more were girls). I was then shocked to realise the author was a woman. As a female children’s author, wouldn’t you see it as your job to try and redress the balance a bit?

I have not noticed this at all. Yabu.

Jacqueline Wilson’s protagonists are usually female if that helps.

I think the poor authors should be left to do what they want. If you want to see more books with girls in them then buy more books with girls. If others feel the same they will do the same. Publishers will see the trend and publish more books featuring girls. Instead of blaming authors you need to look at the industry which allows their work to get to you and have your actions as a consumer effect the products on offer.

I’m a female children’s author who primarily writes female protagonists. The same is true of most authors I know. The books you’ve encountered are likely an exception.

We do also write male protagonists on occasion. Nothing against writing make characters but one tends to write from experience.

Plenty of female authors write female protagonists. If you say which age group you’re looking at I’ll happily recommend some.

Do you think male authors should always have to feature boys (because currently, they dont)? How about authors are free to write as they wish and the rest of us are free to read as we choose?

you write a bloody book!

I’m a primary school teacher. We did an audit of our library and it was absolutely staggering the amount of books that featured male protagonists. It is a huge problem. Particularly in schools who don’t have the budgets to buy lots of new stock. It is definitely an issue. Personally, yes of course I can choose what to buy (this book was just an example and was given to me). But I just don’t get why female authors would do this? And to those who say it doesn’t happen, or only bad authors do it..err...Harry Potter?

@BarbariansMum nope, male authors should also write more books with female protagonists.

@Helmetbymidnight I’m too busy moaning on mn

I don’t agree with this. People should write their protagonists and books however they want.

i look for goodbooks about girls for dd, and honestly havent struggled (age range say 8-12) i do remember with the younger ages they did seem like the boys had all the starring roles and the girls were just supporting the action...,

No one said it doesn’t happen - obviously there are female authors writing male protagonists. And no one said it’s only bad authors doing it. There are lots of reasons why someone would choose to write a particular character.

Whi is buying the books for your primary school library?

I have heard the view that girls will read books about any characters, whilst boys will only read books about boys.

So, if you’re building a library for boys and girls and have a limited budget - you pick more books about make characters.

Could that kind of thinking be a factor?

i guess the theory is girl readers dont mind reading about girls orboys, but poor tender boys cant read anything just about girls, so some writers try to make sure they dont miss that chunk of the market.

@Helmetbymidnight I agree, there are lots of authors doing this now, but the historical backlog means schools and libraries are chock full of boys. I think if you are writing now, you can afford to make one of your 4 characters female.

Generally boys prefer to read about boys and girls have already been subjugated by the patriarchy don’t mind. So from an audience reach POV it makes sense for an author to focus on boys.
Strong female characters do feature in kids literature though. There is of course Harry Potter but there’s also His dark materials, girl with all the gifts, Roald Dahl, Jacqueline Wilson all feature female protagonists

You do wonder if Harriet Potter would have been quite as universally successful don’t you? Hard one to think about.

@Helmetbymidnight EXACTLY. And that’s the case because girls have had to enjoy reading and watching male protagonists otherwise we would have been bored shitless!

two books dd loved recently were 'the war that saved my life' - brilliant- with lovely main character, and 'the trials and tribulations of lily tripitaka'.

Harry Potter reference... errrr hermione????

I can't believe the responses saying yabu. I completely agree with you. Far too many Male protagonists in children's books with a token female sidekick if we're lucky

Yes Hermione was fantastic. But would Harriet Potter have landed so well?!

@Helmetbymidnight EXACTLY. And that’s the case because girls have had to enjoy reading

yes! even as i began writing that i started to put 'girls dont mind...blah blah' but then realised, eh! actually, girls have simply had to get used to it because it has been/was their norm...

I've written a few unpublished books, and to be honest, it's just not how characters behave in my head.

For years, I'd have ideas about books to write or characters to explore, but they never made it onto the page.

The stories I've written don't really give me a choice in my imagination, if that makes sense? My main series of books follows a fairly even split of male/female characters, but I didn't decide the main female protagonist had a best female friend, or that after they fell out her next best friend would be a man, or the female friend's new bestie would be a gay woman. It just... came as a package, as if it all already existed?

FWIW, I also hate the trend these days to decry people as 'problematic'. Some of my characters are shit, some of them are good, some occasionally do shit or good things regardless of their intent or general character. Writing is as much inspiration as design, but if you are designing, you absolutely should be designing 3D humans, with all their foibles.