Let Books Be Books was founded in March 2014 as a campaign to persuade publishers of children's books to stop labelling and promoting books as 'for boys' or 'for girls'. The campaign, which is led by parents and traces its origins to a thread on the on-line forum

Mumsnet Mumsnet is a London-based internet forum, created in 2000 by Justine Roberts for discussion between parents of children and teenagers. History and finances Mumsnet was created in 2000 by Justine Roberts, who came up with the idea of a we ...

, is a spin-off of the Let Toys be Toys campaign, which seeks to get toy manufactures to stop gendering their products. In its founding statement, the campaign said: “Children are listening, and take seriously the messages they receive from books, from toys, from marketing and the adults around them. Do we really want them to believe that certain things are off-limits for them because of their gender? They’re not ‘getting it wrong’ if a girl likes robots, or if a boy wants to doodle flowers. ..It's time that publishers Let Books Be Books and leave children free to choose their interests for themselves”.

Response from authors

Prominent authors supporting the Let Books Be Books campaign include former children's laureates

Anne Fine Anne Fine OBE FRSL (born 7 December 1947) is an English writer. Although best known for children's books, she also writes for adults. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and she was appointed an OBE in 2003. Fine has written more ...

and

Malorie Blackman Malorie Blackman is a British writer who held the position of Children's Laureate from 2013 to 2015. She primarily writes literature and television drama for children and young adults. She has used science fiction to explore social and ethica ...

, the

poet laureate A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) ...

Carol-Ann Duffy, and

Philip Pullman Sir Philip Nicholas Outram Pullman (born 19 October 1946) is an English writer. His books include the fantasy trilogy ''His Dark Materials'' and '' The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ'', a fictionalised biography of Jesus. In 2008, ''Th ...

. Anne Fine told UK newspaper ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the G ...

'':

"You'd think this battle would have been won decades ago. But even some seemingly bright and observant adults are buying into it again ��There are girls of all sorts, with all interests, and boys of all sorts with all interests. Just meeting a few children should make that obvious enough. But no, these idiotic notions are spouted so often they become a self-fulfilling societal straitjacket from which all our children suffer".

Also speaking to ''The Guardian'', Pullman, author of the ''

His Dark Materials ''His Dark Materials'' is a trilogy of fantasy novels by Philip Pullman consisting of '' Northern Lights'' (1995; published as ''The Golden Compass'' in North America), ''The Subtle Knife'' (1997), and ''The Amber Spyglass'' (2000). It follows ...

'' trilogy, said:

"I'm against anything, from age-ranging to pinking and blueing, whose effect is to shut the door in the face of children who might enjoy coming in. No publisher should announce on the cover of any book the sort of readers the book would prefer. Let the readers decide for themselves".

Response from publishers

In the week following the campaign's launch, Parragon Books responded on

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, an ...

, tweeting: "Feedback on gender-specific titles is important to us. We have no plans to create new titles referring to boy/girl in the UK". In the same week, publisher Usborne announced that a plan to "discontinue publication of titles such as these was decided some time ago”, adding that the company took "feedback on gender-specific titles very seriously” and that it had "no plans to produce any titles labelled 'for girls' or 'for boys' in the future". On Sunday 16 March, the literary editor of the UK newspaper the ''

Independent on Sunday ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

'', Katy Guest, announced:

”Gender-specific books demean all our children. ��So I promise now that the newspaper and this website will not be reviewing any book which is explicitly aimed at just girls, or just boys. Nor will ''The Independent’''s books section. And nor will the children’s books blog at independent.co.uk”.

However, Michael O'Mara, owner of Buster Books defended his company's gender-specific titles, such as ''The Beautiful Girls' Colouring Book'' and ''The Brilliant Boys' Colouring Book'', to ''The Independent on Sunday'' in March 2014, saying:

”It's a fact of life how a very large percentage of people shop when buying for kids, do it by sex. We know for a fact that when they are shopping on Amazon, they quite often type in 'books for boys' and 'books for girls’”.

In November 2014,

Ladybird Books Ladybird Books is a London-based publishing company, trading as a stand-alone imprint within the Penguin Group of companies. The Ladybird imprint publishes mass-market children's books. It is an imprint of Penguin Random House, a subsidiary of ...

signed up to the Let Books Be Books campaign and announced that it was "committed" to avoiding gendered titles and would be removing such labelling in reprinted copies. The publisher added: "Out of literally hundreds of titles currently in print, we actually only have six titles with this kind of titling". Its parent company, Penguin Random House Children's division, will also be following suit. Other publishers who have informed Let Books Be Books that they will no longer be publishing gender-specific titles include

Dorling Kindersley Dorling Kindersley Limited (branded as DK) is a British multinational publishing company specialising in illustrated reference books for adults and children in 63 languages. It is part of Penguin Random House, a subsidiary of German media cong ...

, Chad Valley and

Miles Kelly Publishing Miles Kelly Publishing is an independent children's publishing company founded by Jim Miles and Gerard Kelly in 1996. It is based in the village of Bardfield End Green near Thaxted in Essex, UK, after moving from its base of 13 years in Gre ...

.{{cite web , url=http://www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk/more-publishers-agree-to-let-books-be-books/#more-3484, title=More publishers agree to Let Books Be Books, author= , date=10 November 2014, website= www.lettoysbetoys.org.uk , accessdate=24 November 2014

References

External links

Let Books Be Books
Advocacy groups in the United Kingdom Gender and society Parents' organizations Gender-related stereotypes Children's literature organizations

Response from authors

Response from publishers

See also

References

External links