healthy reading for young girls?

[Aranea]

I'm watching 'Stop pimping our kids' at the moment and am feeling quite depressed about the magazine images my dds will be seeing and presumably internalising as normality.

I have two dds aged 6 and 2. So they're both a bit young really for any serious discussions about gender politics. I did try actually when dd1 read a rather good book called 'Bill's New Frock', but all the sexism mentioned in it went right over her head and I began to feel it was inappropriate to ram the point home.

When I was about 10 my mother gave me 'Girls Are Powerful', a collection of young women's writings from Spare Rib. But I don't know if there is anything equivalent now? Or is there anything else I can push my dds' way which will help to counterbalance all the crap they'll be seeing over the next few years?

Link here with several pages

Collection from spare rib sounds great!

Great, thank you both. That all looks excellent (and dd1 is already a big Pippi Longstocking fan).

And yes, the Spare Rib collection was great... it came with a 'Girls Are Powerful' badge which I wore proudly to school. I remember my (male) teacher looking at it and sneering, 'What's that? Some kind of women's lib?' - I think he was slightly taken aback when I just said, 'yes'.

At the moment I am only buying DD (almost 6) books with female protagonists and powerful female characters. I have amassed quite a few and have lots all the way up to YA which are waiting for her to grow into. Some recent
favourites have been:

Clover Twig series by Kaye Umansky
Pongwiffy series by Kaye Umansky
Scarlet Silver series by Sarah McConnell and Lucy Courtenay
Princess Polly to the Rescue by Mary Lister (this was my favourite book as a child, out of print but Amazon has some second hand)
The Farthest Away Mountain by Lynne Reid Banks (another childhood favourite of mine and I have several copies-one for each child and one for me)
Igraine the Brave by Cornelia Funke
The Princess Knight by Cornelia Funke
Pirate Girl by cornelia Funke

Some that are waiting for her to be older are:

The Alanna series by Tamora Pierce
Witch Child, Sorceress, Sovay and Pirates by Celia Rees
Inkheart Series by Cornelia Funke
Julia Golding has written some fabulous books-Dragonfly, Wolf Cry etc

I also have a lots of brilliant fantasy with strong female characters on my own shelves, but DD has an entire huge bookcase just to herself so if you want some more suggestions I'm happy to go and dig some out for you. I have found that Enid Blyton etc has somewhat outdated views and we have slowly excised the ones that we owned. ATM the big thing is Doctor Who and she is devouring the quick reads and some of the novelisations (after I have checked for things that aren't age appropriate) including all ten of the Darksmith Legacy books which have some very positive female characters.

Wow, thank you! What a great list. I can't stand Enid Blyton, more because it's so badly written than for any other reason.

Do you think that if we provide our dds with this kind of stuff it will counterbalance all of the pop videos, magazines etc? I've just been watching the final programme in the 'Stop pimping our kids' series, and am feeling even more concerned. I hope I'm overreacting but I would hate for my weird imaginative eccentric little dd1 to start feeling she has to conform and worry about her body.

Sounds like a great recommendation to me!

Just added 'Girls are Best' to my wishlist

Also remembered:

For older girls-
Dawn Cook
Mercedes Lackey

For younger girls:
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0590721704/ref=oss_product
www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0595345212/ref=oss_product
www.amazon.co.uk/Wrestling-Princess-Other-Stories-Knight/dp/034040860X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1303506550&sr=1-1
www.amazon.co.uk/Necklace-Raindrops-Joan-Aiken/dp/0224083805/ref=pd_sim_b_3

and Babette Cole of course.

With regards to counterbalance, I dont know but I'd like to think it does. I think its important for DDs to see strong female role models and if there arent enough of them in real life I am looking for them in other arenas instead.

DD is a wonderfully confident tomboy at the moment but I am aware this will be harder to sustain as she gets older so I am trying to boost her confidence and self-awareness as much as possible e.g. commenting on particularly obvious gender stereotyping in adverts and giving her lots of positive examples to combat any negative comments. Mostly though I am just listening to her atm and trying to fight my own innate cultural stereotyping e.g. DD desperately wanted some T-shirts from the boys department in a shop and my first reaction was reluctance (for about two seconds!) which I rationalised out before buying the T-shirts (monster and Ghostbusters).

Part of this reluctance is due to the fact that I was horribly bullied throughout primary and secondary school due to my difference and although DD's school are very good I still have this fear that it will happen to her too.

Firky my DD aged 6 has recently made a new girl friend at school and my DD told me in awe "She has a Ben Ten Flask!"

DD has been very, very pink princess obsessed (nothing to do with me!) and I was so happy that she had a mate who was able to resist the peer pressure of the other girls and to have what she liked....not what she thought she SHOULD like.

So thank you for getting your DD those T shirts! Your DD and you are helping other kids to get over the crap!

Thanks for that Skinitting, it means a lot..its nice to hear that someone thinks I am on the right track as I often feel like the lone voice in the wilderness.

DD has a dinosaur lunchbox which is coveted by quite a few of her classmates

In reference to the thread I also forgot the 7 book Lily Quench series by Natalie Prior.

Skinitting and Firky, my son (3) has a nursery school lunchbox with a very pink peppa Pig on....he chose it as it was the biggest in the shop and he could 'get the most food in' (!)
DD (7) loves a series called ?10 girls who changed the world, ?12 girls who made a difference etc..biogs of feisty and wonderful historic women. Also Mrs Pepperpot series.