gender neutral books for babies/toddlers

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Looking at baby/toddler books today to buy for my playgroup's Christmas party, I became totally dispirited at the lack of girls in the stories. Yes, there are some where a little girl is the main protagonist, but even then most of the other characters were male (animals, friends, dinosaurs, whatever). I would love it if authors really thought about this. Why can't the books relect real life with half the characters being female? If I had a creative bone in my body I'd write the stories myself, but I haven't so, has anyone got any suggestions for books which fulfil my obviously very demanding needs?

Not even subtle then, I have no idea how I didn’t register that.
Thanks for humouring me,

Emily Brown! Is amazing. She does a lot of adventuring and doesn't take any shit. 'This Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown', 'Emily Brown and the Thing', and 'Emily Brown and the Elephant Emergency', all highly recommended.

Pippi Longstocking goes down a treat. I love Charlie and Lola, too.

I also change 'he' for 'she' quite a lot of the time, when irritated by the relentless maleness of books.

Martin Waddell's Big Bear and Little Bear series and Farmer Duck don't , as far as I remember, specify the sex of any of the animals. There is a mother in Owl Babies but the babies are just babies. They were beautiful and quite moving.

’A Day with the animal doctors’ by Sharon Reptta is lovely. Mummy is a doctor and there are lots of female and male characters.

I like Charlie and Lola too. He’s such a lovely big brother.

Peppa Pig books.

The Little Miss series by Roger Hargreaves.
Little Miss Magic is a good one.

Is The Hungry Caterpillar female??

AuthorofPollyandTheSockBeast
Ooh looks great

There was an old lady who swallowed a fly. It's a good rhyming book, that can also be a song, which you can get on YouTube (I'm sure it's available in other formats)

lassofyvie re Owl Babies, I think the babies have names if I remember - was it Sarah, percy and bill? Or am I just imagining and mis-remembering? Clearly with 3 DC's I have spent far too long reading many many childrens books -havent we all?!!

I find this interesting as all my children are boys. I dont think I've ever really registered whether the characters in their books are Male or female. It's something I've never thought about (feel a bit ashamed now!).

Thinking of their favourite picture books over the years, many of them have neutral animal characters - "Never shake a rattlesnake" "Animal Pants" or "Tall" by jesus marlborough are all great. "Tabby mctat" Julia Donaldson is great, although the cat is a boy he meets a girl cat and they live with Prunella and Pat. (Both female).

*JEZ ALBOROUGH funniest typo ever, wonder if he uses Jesus Marlborough as a psuedonym😂😂😂

Yes @foreverblessedbee they are Sarah, Percy and Bill. And Sarah is the brave big sister who reassures her little brothers.

You've reminded me I've bought this one as a gift for friends new baby for this very reason.

Just another shout out for Rosie's Hat (Julia Donaldson) which I mentioned earlier. It's a really sweet story about a little girl (Rosie) who loses her hat. She grows up to become a firefighter!

Another vote for Owl Babies.

This was a favourite in our house. Female cat, female kitten.

www.goodreads.com/book/show/2676835-have-you-got-my-purr

The Very Busy Spider is female, and the only animal whose sex is explicitly mentioned in the book - though we assume the cockerel is male!

We also enjoy Where's The Bus (Eileen Browne & James Croft). I think all three characters are female - either that or one or two are and the rest unspecified so we've made them female. This also had the advantage of being a morality tale to chivvy DD into hurrying up lest we miss the bus like silly Rabbit and Mouse! (Sorry for the spoiler.)

My children love The Very Busy Spider.

Lucia the Luchadora is a great book for girls. I have the same frustration with books for my daughter. Very confused that one of the first posts suggested The Gruffalo, which does not have a single female character in it!

I like books that don’t specify whether the main characters are male or female, so you can just make it up to suit your mood. A few that come to mind:
Jon Klassen’s Hat series
Chris Haughton’s A Bit Lost and Goodnight Everyone

I also really like Daisy Hirst’s Alphonse that is not okay to do and Hilda and the runaway baby.

A few already mentioned but popular ones with my 2 DDs are
Meg and Mog books
Little Princess books
Charlie and Lola
Sarah and Duck
My Big Shouting Day - about a little girl having a really bad day, my 2 year old loves this.
Just bought Izzy Gizmo about a girl who invents and at a first reading my 4 year old thought she was brilliant.
The Gruffalo is male but the Gruffalo’s child is female.
A bit more old fashioned but we recently borrowed Moving Molly by Shirley Hughes and it was delightful.

My children love books with little girls (eg Lola, Izzy, Sarah) and I would agree they can be harder to find.

A lot of Pamela Allen's picture books feature female characters doing interesting things and being noisy, etc. In my experience, they actually would be suitable girls or boys. and are really fabulous for toddlers and up to about 5 years. She is from Australia/NZ, and I think her books are all in print.

Some, like "Mr Archimedes' Bath" deal with scientific principles in a way toddlers can understand.

Bygrab

Wait aren't snails asexual? Has this feisty snail been misgendered? Hope Julia D doesn't get a call from the snail police.

Also for older children I've got to add a vote for the Mr Gum books. The main character is Polly a smart, determined little girl who takes no shit. Yes all the other characters are male but are either the bad guys or part of the 'team' that she leads.

We couldn't read them at bed time though, just too funny!

My Big Shouting Day is ace!

Peck, Peck, Peck is good for having a caring male role model. I like it because it shows the relationship mine have with their dad - he kisses them and puts them to bed.

Sorry if this has been mentioned already but “Dogs don’t do ballet” is really good. It has a lovely message and is one of my son’s favourites.

Hmmm some of the little miss books are dodgy. I've hidden little miss bossy as it appears to be loads of men getting a woman to shut up and then laughing at her anger... Just made me feel uncomfortable....

The nut brown hare books are about males being caring and loving and enjoying nature. A wonderful lack of monster trucks

I think snails are hermaphrodite....