"It's a shame if The Gruffalo's seen as a boy's book"

[moreyear]

Hi for the last couple of days the heading you have used to link to the Julia Donaldson webchat has been bothering me.

You have (in quote marks!) "It's a shame if The Gruffalo's seen as a boy's book". It is entirely possible to read that as the author saying it is a shame The Gruffalo is seen as a boys book because it is a book intended for girls. I thought, as I read it, I am surprised the author wrote this rather than something more precise like "It's a shame if people see it as a book purely/only/intended for boys...'ecetera. Because surely the book is intended to be enjoyed by both genders (like one would hope all books popular with toddlers are).

Indeed when I search the webchat to get contextualisation of her words I see that is indeed exactly what she did -
"I think it's a shame if retailers see THE GRUFFALO as purely a boys' book. (Bolding mine)."

I find it odd you have gone with the copyline you have (that doesn't even accurately reflect the authors words) and that can by implication exclude boys. Why leave out the 'purely'? It makes the sentence ambiguous.

Maybe I am being unreasonable but I think you should take care to not explicitly or implicitly exclude any of our children.

Thank you.

I interpreted the abbreviated sentence as Donaldson's original quote (not a book just for boys but for both boys and girls). However, I think you're right. If the sentence read "It would be a shame if The Gruffalo's seen as a girls' book" it would definitely jar.

Hi there

Thanks for flagging this up - it really wasn't intentional; more a matter of cutting for space and not spotting that we'd changed the meaning slightly. Apologies!

The Gruffalo is, as we all know, a book for boys, girls and stonking great big grown-ups everywhere, and long may it continue to be so

Thank you very much.

Tribpot - that was exactly what ran through my mind.