Unhappy with school reading book

[Kinect]

DD is in reception & has three reading books a week. We have a little book to fill in with a note of how DD reacted. Yesterday's book was, "a princess & a dragon'. Story went like this princess, dragon, roar, help, prince, prince saves princess, they are happy.

I have written in the notebook that it is against my feminist principles to read the story with DD.

I am very unhappy about material like this being in school.

Should I take this further with the school?
Or is my comment in the notebook sufficient.

It's funny how people say FWR is hostile. This thread looks like a classic AIBU pile-on on the OP.

Try Zog by Julia Donaldson as a counterpoint. The thing is, there will be books with messages you don't like - I think it's better to foster critical thinking and reading from the start, rather than censor.

I always find the anti feminists much more hostile than the feminists, to be honest!

Introduce her to Jung"s theories about anima and animus. Only joking. Who did she identify.with? Children's responses can surprise you.

Well...Iwould say read it and explain different sides to it etc.Ds brings home utterly awful books, we have to make sure we read interesting ones! We have a similar issue re religion.He chose not to go to the Harvest Festival...he questions and we try togive a balanced view!
At themoment he believes we are all part of one consciousness.We always talk about what we read...evenif he camehome with a book like your daughter's I would probably discuss it with him.

AAAARGH re Biff and Chip!

Blimey, you're getting a hard time OP. FWIW I think you're doing the right thing - bringing it to the attention of the teacher that you don't want your DD drip fed the notions peddled in these outdated 'fairytale' style stories.
My DD is in reception too and so far we haven't had any princess/female being rescued by male type books, my DSs did get them either. Maybe the school doesn't tend to keep them?

I think it's insidious and needs challenging. No, it's not going to make them think they can stay home and wait for their handsome prince but it is getting them accustomed to the idea that boys do and girls sit, that boys rescue and girls wait to be rescued etc.

Books that my mother didn't like made them much more appealing!
I never got anywhere discussing issues in books with my DCs, they just looked at me rather pityingly and said 'it is only a story, mum, you don't need to take it so seriously'.

OP, I think the teacher is going to think you are a loon.

If you consider reality - take a current real princess in the royal family - it's likely she'd be rescued by a (male) security person if she was attacked. You could have pointed out that real princes also have a security detail.

Generally speaking, men are bigger and stronger than women. Most bodyguards are male. You cannot deny that the average height of a man is larger than the average height of a woman for example.

You could of course have told your dd it was all fiction as there is no such thing as a dragon!

There are any number of ways you could have done the book with your dd and added some explanation to make it more compliant to your (fairly militant IMO) views. Rather than taking up the teacher's time with something you could have solved yourself.

Throughout history, uncompromising intolerant fanatics, who took themselves and their ideals too seriously, have burnt books they didn't approve of. Just a suggestion.

"OP, I think the teacher is going to think you are a loon."

I don't. I think the teacher will be absolutely delighted to have an aware and interested parent who is concerned about the way children are taught about life. She will have, I hope, have already thought about the images of boys and girls that the children are being given, and will be happy to talk about the reading books she might like to have bought for her class by the PTA.

Yep. That's why I said "children" and "boys and girls" in my post.

I love fairy stories. Always have. I started to question them from an early age and later adored Angela Carter's short story The Bloody Chamber for subverting them so skillfully.

I don't accept this idea that literature (even children's literature) is there to present life purely in the form we would like it to be. That seems to me to negate its power.

Pictish I just recommended The Paper Bag Princess on your other thread

I've faced this with my DCs and did what others gave suggested by reading it and questioning the message as we read and at the end of the story. My dd and ds both love books and reading and now spot the sort of sexist crap that features in so many books themselves.

When I was young I loved the Famous Five but thought they were incredibly sexist. Now that I read to my own children, I realised that not much has really changed.

We love the princess smartypants books.