Books for gender non conforming 6 yo

[JustcameoutGC]

Morning all. My 6 yo daughter is not a very girly girl. She likes minecraft, coding and is beginning to prefer the company of boys. So far so good. However, gender stereotypes are so reinforced from such an early age (girls do sparkly unicorns, boys do football) she is beginning to say things like she must be a boy, or sometimes she is a girl and sometimes she is a boy. I have spoken to her about it at length, and as far as i can tell, there is no sense of gender dysphoria present. She is just adding 2 and 2 and getting 5. Boys like minecraft, i like minecraft, maybe i am a boy.

Does anyone have any good suggestions for books i can get her that show that boys and girls can and should wear and do anything.

If we focused on breaking down gender stereotypes, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with.
I have already picked up My body is Me.

Has she read the Daisy books? She is a little girl who gets up to mischief but has no bad intentions. There is no focus on ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ stuff and the books explore the curiosity of young children. It shouldn’t matter really, but Daisy doesn’t wear dresses and has short hair, but is most definitely a girl. Some might say she is a tomboy, but she is just a little girl.
My DD when 6 loved these books and we had lots of fun reading them together.

socialistcat

Depending on exactly how far she is into her teens, The Exiles and sequels by Hilary McKay (four sisters and their grandmother, all totally different people!) could be really good. It's a fantastic book.

For older teens, Lore by Alexandra Bracken. It was on the New York Times bestseller list for weeks. bookstacked.com/reviews/book-reviews/lore-review-alexandra-bracken/

There's a good Facebook page and website called A Mighty Girl which is really good for recommendations for all age groups.

Oh, and OP, for a six-year-old, the Sophie books by Dick King-Smith should be perfect!

www.dickkingsmith.com/book-category/the-sophie-books/

She's a five year old girl who wants to be a farmer when she grows up, and she turns six and then seven over the course of the series.

Possibly a little young for your DD, but Cressida Cowell's Emily Brown books are about a very sensible girl with short hair who goes on epic imaginary adventures with her rabbit, Stanley.

I loved them.

Look up by Nathan Bryon is about a space obsessed girl who is excited about a meteor shower. The Ada Twist and Rosie Revere books are good. I try to read books about women in science to my science obsessed boy, so they don't grow up believing all girls are sparkly princesses. If you have Netflix, then Emily's wonder lab is great. She is in pink dungarees, but presented a science show while 8 months pregnant, so bit of women yay there.

Also came on to recommend Girls can do anything, awesome book, my DD 6 adores it and it very specifically talks to the different ways girls can dress/physically present as well the different areas of interest they can have and how awesome it is to be female.

This might be a bit young for her but there's a good amount of verse.

About a 'Princess' who's a whizz at engineering and ends up with her own workshop.

As well as the Daisy books, the Pamela Butchart books are very good and feature girls coming up with mad ideas like the dinner ladies are trying to poison them and "solving" the mystery.
My view is that you don't want necessarily want books with gender non-conforming girls in them, you just want books with girls in them which aren't also full of fairies, unicorns and glitter.

If she is into Minecraft, then YouTuber StacyPlays is a great one to watch with her - she has also written a series of books based on her Minecraft characters (mainly herself and her wolfpack).

Not really relevant op, but I had no idea that Minecraft was read as "boy".

I've played it since Beta and although I only have boys, both of them have plenty of female friends who play. Ds1 has just resurrected his realms account aged 15 and plays with 3 girls and one other boy.

Stereotypes are so rubbish.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

I have similar daughter, now eight. One thing I do is point out any woman in the news etc that does something associated with male stereotypes. Her current hero is the first woman to become an Admiral in the navy or something like that. (She has now declared shes joining the Navy to be an engineer, so this may be considered a backfire...)

Why do you think that's a backfire?

For the OP, don't forget the Swallows and Amazons series in due course. She's a bit young for them yet although maybe ok for reading to her.

[quote PurgatoryOfPotholes]socialistcat

Depending on exactly how far she is into her teens, The Exiles and sequels by Hilary McKay (four sisters and their grandmother, all totally different people!) could be really good. It's a fantastic book.

For older teens, Lore by Alexandra Bracken. It was on the New York Times bestseller list for weeks. bookstacked.com/reviews/book-reviews/lore-review-alexandra-bracken/[/quote]
This looks absolutely perfect! Loves Greek mythology and loved Hunger Games

Thanks!!

[quote Boobeedoo]@socialistcat has your teen read the His Dark Materials or the Hunger Games trilogies? Both have strong females leads subverting traditional gender expectations (though I think the endings of both can be argued as a bit controversial from a feminist perspective - great discussion starters though).[/quote]
Yes read both and loved them!

@PatsArrow

Socialistcat I'm not sure the exact age group but have a look at these.

Difficult Women is very good - not aimed at teens of course but it depends on the reading ability/age range really.

I'll look at these too thanks. She is a big reader so reads adult books too if they're appropriate. 15 yo

@socialistcat
I really enjoyed the Graceling by Kristin Cashore, a fantasy YA book which has a very strong, non-GC young female protagonist. I’m not sure what age it’s appropriate for as it has quite a lot of violence, I don’t have children (and read fairly inappropriate stuff as a teenager myself!) so a terrible judge of these things

But probably not significantly darker than His Dark Materials or Hunger Games (and very similar tone/themes to those)

www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0345450213/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?psc=1&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&ie=UTF8

That book recommends: More Than 600 Books to Inspire Today's Girls and Tomorrow's Women

Thora by Gillian Johnson is great! I dunno if she's gender non-conforming so much as a great, slightly odd, complex and fascinating character.

When she's old enough to enjoy chapter books, I highly recommend The Accidental Pirates, Journey to Magical North (and the sequel too).

Beautifully written, with a brilliant female protagonist.

www.amazon.co.uk/Voyage-Magical-North-Accidental-Pirates/dp/1447290607/?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Another one for older teens is Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones. Polly is amazing. And for slightly younger teens Howl's Moving Castle.

I used to like the Malory Towers and St Clare's series by Enid Blyton.

All types of girls are represented - the characters were all quite different. It goes to show that there is no 'one' way to be a girl. There are often storylines of girls rescuing the others from peril - off the side of a cliff, for example, or from drowning in the sea.

It says something that books written in the 1940s are more feminist than some of those written today.

I came to this thread to suggest Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones for an older teen! Seeing as I have been beaten to the post, I will suggest The Time of the Ghost, also by DWJ, for older teens.

For the 10-14 age range, I suggest the Jinny horse books by Patricia Leitch

www.goodreads.com/author/show/381975.Patricia_Leitch

I think EdgeofaCoin is on to something here. Books based in girls' boarding schools have to have a variety of different female characters because of the format, and the authors simply can't split hobbies by sex stereotypes.

The Trebizon books by Anne Digby (if I'm remembering that right) were very good.

Also recommend Princess Smartypants by Babette Cole and the Trebizon series. Girls boarding school stories as Purgatory says, have a range of female characters and they act independantly without the intrusion of boys.
If you read aloud you could try my old trick of swapping the characters so the female ones take on some of the male parts. They didnt catch me out on that one for a while!