Some children’s books

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So today I went to the only bookshop in my town looking for some books for my kids and I was quite dismayed to see how many books about gender ideology there were in the (very small) kids’ section.

The content was as I expected. Your body is not important, it’s how you feel inside that counts. There was also stuff like “Some boys like to play with girls’ toys. Should they be made to feel bad for it? No!” Which I totally agree with. But then going to suggest they are not “real” boys and must therefore be girls.

I despair. My kids start school next year and I have no idea how I’m going to steer them through all the regressive gender bullshit they’ll inevitably be taught.

My daughter loved Hairy McClary books and the 'That's not my...' books. I'm a single mum and it was really hard to find a book with our kind of family. The closest I got was 'A chair for my mother'. We also had a few books All kinds of family which was a sweet rhyming book about objects that make families.
Todd Marrs books were good too. We liked the family one and feelings one. There was a roller skating bad ass mum in one of them which I insisted was me or it could have been a dancing crazy mum I can't remember now! This is all kids need at a young age.

One of my daughters loved secret seven but I did use it to show the inequalities. Poor Janet only ever being able to pour lemonade and hand out biscuits. Of course we talked about that was how it was back then and how great it is now she can do anything as a girl!

The other image didn't post. Here it is.

I've found it to be part of a wider problem where new children's books for the three to six age group seem very focused on moods, emotions and feelings to the point where it is a bit strange.

I discovered my daughter didn't really understand the concepts at all because they were exploring emotional experiences that her age group don't really have: like a consciousness of being "a boring person" or "hating their hair".

The pictures aren't interesting enough either. There's not enough detail.

We were given a huge stack of second-hand Winnie the Witch books and my five year old loves them to pieces.

Personally, I think Winnie is a wonderful character for little girls. She's short sighted, middle aged, doesn't shave her legs, goes on holiday when she needs to, loves her friends and family and her cat, has a bonkers house, keeps up with technology, takes action to change things around her, and has experiences she learns from.

Ooh yes Winnie was another favourite. My daughter is autistic so trying to help her with emotions was useful. She only understood happy or angry. I was trying to teach her that we have a range of emotions and they are all okay. Even anger is okay.
My other daughter's all time favourite book when she was little was Little Miss Scatterbrain, we still refer to it now and she is 14!

That's a truly awful story.

But being transgender is definitely, definitely not about stereotypes.

Watch out for books about puberty - I'm just about to return a book I ordered about periods which manages to avoid using the words women or girls. Apparently people of different genders have a womb and ovaries.

I've found the trend for highly simplistic illustrations interesting. I think maybe it started because people thought babies could see them better, but it has moved to older kids. But they often don't prefer them, they like stories where there is significant detail in the pictures.

I agree about the emotions thing, and it goes beyond that. There is a real trend to books about emotions, anxiety, etc for older children and teens too. It's no wonder they are all obsessed with their inner life.

My favorite children's book as a child was A Story About Ping, and my kids all loved it too. Great illustrations, an interesting setting, some complex emotional resonances and ethical questions, none of which are explained or which require a parent to explain, they are integrated into a compelling narrative.

I'm pretty sure it wouldn't get published today though.

I started to looking for children's books to research the past couple years and was really shocked to see the identity politics seeping into the culture in this way. I don't have a problem with the LGBT community but it seems like children are being sexualized and/or being exposed to innuendo younger and younger