Book for 5 year old with girls / women doing "boy/man" jobs

[NewNameNigel]

Apologies for the clunky title.

My niece is turning 5 soon and she is at the age where she's noticing patterns in what men and women do and the other day she was shocked to see a bus driver who was a woman. I want to challenge the idea that some jobs are just for men and she loves to read so as I'd like to get her a book that shows women doing traditional men's jobs and vice versa.

I'd like it to be a book she likes so nothing too worthy or obviously educational. If it includes toilet humour it's a bonus!

Does anyone know of anything?

Lady bird do a ‘when I grow up’ series. This 4 book set covers builder, doctor, firefighter and farmer and have both men and women in them doing the same jobs.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Clare-Hibbert-Ladybird-Books-Collection/dp/9526537017?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A10J8UZNCZV6EM

Thank you. Those look great.

Not a book, but show her old episodes of Pigeon Street on Youtube, with Long Distance Clara!

Izzy Gizmo is nice, about a girl who likes to invent. Dick King-Smith's Sophie series (Sophie wants to be a farmer). Katie Morag, with Grannie Island who keeps sheep and mends tractors.

I loved pigeon street!!! I might watch an episode on my own now, for research purposes only you understand!

I will also have a look at those books.

I was going to suggest the Questioneers series. There are picture books as well as chapter books, but no toilet humour in the one I read!

She might be a bit old now but the original Apple Tree Farm series features Mrs Boot, the farmer.

I haven't read these since my childhood so not sure if they would stand the test of time, some of the Happy Family books by Allan Ahlberg might fit the bill. You might want to read them first just to check.

We love the Andrea Beaty books - Ada Twist, Scientist and Rosie Revere, Engineer. Lovely rhymes and pictures.

Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood

My Robots: The Robotic Genius of Lady Regina Bonquers III by Johan Olander

The Franny K Stein books by Jim Benton

It strikes me that while there are now books with women in all sorts of roles, I'm not sure there's many 'vice versa.'.... men being nurses, primary teachers, secretarial ...

Mr Cooper is Super by Dan Gutman

Ballerino Nate by Kimberly Bradley

Clive is a Nurse, Clive and his babies by Jessica Spanyol (for younger kids unfortunately, probably a bit too babyish for a 5 year old)

Zog and the flying doctors
The Man whose Mother was a Pirate
Burglar Bill

Second Ada Twist and Rosie Revere

Also - the book 'Girls'. I think one of them grows up to be a doctor or scientist.

I'm sure you'll find a children's book on Mary Anwyn.

Girls can do Anything by Caryl Hart is a fantastic book, my nearly 4 yr old loves it, covers jobs as well as historic and current inspirational women, great messages and lovely illustrations

www.amazon.co.uk/Girls-Can-Anything-Caryl-Hart/dp/1407177389/ref=asc_df_1407177389/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310850997089&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=10258868070805203958&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046327&hvtargid=pla-562408868622&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

Thank you so much for these suggestions.

The night pirates. A gang of girl pirates

She loves pirates so I will definitely check that one out, thank you

You're right actually. It's odd considering there are more male teachers etc than female bin women for example.

Happy families - the Ahlbergs. We had the whole set. Very funny and quirky and not about stereotypes.

Mrs Plug the Plumber by Allan Ahlberg. It's quite an old book now but still lovely. It's from the "Happy Families" series, all of which are great books for children and very funny, but I think the Mrs Plug one best fits what you're asking for.

I'm often a bit conflicted tbh. I absolutely agree we should give the message that girls can do whatever they want to, but in reality it's a tiny proportion of women that actually choose to.

I don't think it's just down to societal conditioning etc because all my mates hate the idea of doing my job. Out in the mud when it's raining onsite and getting covered in grease when I'm lubing up the truck etc. Dust in my hair every day. It's not something most women like the idea of at all. Same with plumbing and unblocking turds from u-bends etc.

Yes, but part of this is that there are jobs which I'm not sure are generally attractive - I wouldn't want to unblock loos for a living, but on the other hand personally I'd even less like to do personal care for an incontinent adult, which although there are male carers is still largely 'gendered' as women's work. Otoh there are increasing numbers of women in other physical outdoors roles - farming and horticulture for instance.

The other thing is to always resist the notion that traditionally 'male' roles are inherently superior to 'female' ones. Of course a huge issue is that 'women's work' tends to be undervalued (the change in status and pay of teachers as the profession changed to be female dominated and computer programming when it changed to be male dominated is well documented)

But there are many roles that simply shouldn't be gendered. Computer programming and associated roles is a very obvious one and in many other countries it's not male dominated in the same way. Women can be nerds too!

My daughter said she wanted to be "a builder" when she was in year one. The stupid teacher snapped back 'girls can't be builders', instead of applying a bit of sense and asking what she wanted to build... she meant bridges, or planes or ... well, she didn't actually aspire to be a bricklayer. Anyway, fortunately this incident helped create a feminist who's now very happily designing complicated electronic circuits.

I absolutely agree we should give the message that girls can do whatever they want to, but in reality it's a tiny proportion of women that actually choose to.

I agree, I not about to force her to work on an oil rig or become a HGV driver to make a point but I just don't want her feel her options are limited at such a young age.

I was going to say this too! And Mr Plug looks after the babies. It was one of my favourite books and it's only looking back that I realised how unstereotypical it is. The whole Happy Families series is good but this one was my favourite!