{"id":1865,"date":"2010-03-30T21:28:46","date_gmt":"2010-03-31T02:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlwpen.com\/?p=1865"},"modified":"2010-03-30T21:28:46","modified_gmt":"2010-03-31T02:28:46","slug":"beyond-pink-blue-choosing-books-for-choosy-readers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/2010\/03\/30\/beyond-pink-blue-choosing-books-for-choosy-readers\/","title":{"rendered":"BEYOND PINK & BLUE: Choosing Books for Choosy Readers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"One of my \u00c2\u00a0favorite new websites is <\/span>www.sweetonbooks.com<\/span><\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Founded, written, and edited by two book-loving moms who live in my hometown of Larchmont, New York, Sweet On Books offers children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book recommendations for kids at all literacy levels, from picture books and short chapter readers to novels for middle-schoolers and beyond.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0This appealing, user-friendly website is ideal for anyone on the lookout for top-notch children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lit:\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0parents and kids obviously, but also teachers, librarians, grandparents, relatives, and friends. <\/span> <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

As described by co-founders Melissa Young and Melissa Gaynor, the website guides visitors through an annotated \u00e2\u20ac\u0153virtual bookstore\u00e2\u20ac\u009d showcasing books that might not be on a reader\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s immediate radar or that they might not pick up on their own. <\/span>The editors <\/span>write all of the entries themselves, and they add new content every week.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0While it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hardly a comprehensive database, their lively reviews embody the principle of quality over quantity.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Beyond plot summary, each review offers an overall sense of the book\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s quality and tone, and points out issues that could potentially arouse fear or anxiety in young readers. On a lighter note, each book is ranked on a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153laugh meter\u00e2\u20ac\u009d ranging from \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not a comedy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153giggles\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stop laughing.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The site is especially remarkable because it refuses to trade in the all-too-prevalent\u00c2\u00a0gender stereotypes<\/span> that dominate children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book publishing today.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0When designing the site, Ms. Young and Ms. Gaynor chose a palette of light blue, chocolate brown, and\u00c2\u00a0burnt orange<\/span>\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand selected \u00e2\u20ac\u0153gender-neutral\u00e2\u20ac\u009d icons and images that would appeal to readers of both sexes.\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We definitely wanted to avoid being perceived as a \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcgirly site\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 or a site that only boys or only girls would want to visit,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d explains Ms. Young.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Occasionally, a review might mention a book\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s potential appeal to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reluctant boy readers,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d but in its basic structure, the site does not presume that readers for particular books will divide neatly along male-female lines.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0(Ms. Young\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own kids, perhaps, have encouraged her to disregard conventional marketing wisdom.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0In her household, 8-year-old Hannah has devoured all the books in the\u00c2\u00a0Diary of a Wimpy Kid<\/span><\/em> series, while 4-year-old Sam can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get enough of\u00c2\u00a0Fancy Nancy<\/span><\/em>.)<\/p>\n

In conversations with fellow parents and teachers, they discovered that many elementary-school kids seldom discriminate between \u00e2\u20ac\u0153boy books\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153girl books,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153equally happy to read from both ends of the spectrum.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0As Ms. Gaynor elaborated,\u00c2\u00a0\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We try to recommend books that don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t follow typical\u00c2\u00a0stereotypes<\/span> often found in\u00c2\u00a0children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s literature<\/span>:\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0for example, books that have strong, positive relationships between boys and girls (Melonhead<\/em>);\u00c2\u00a0non-traditional roles for boys and girls (Falling for Rapunzel,\u00c2\u00a0Keeping Score<\/span><\/em>); and books with a main character that will appeal to both sexes (Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing<\/span><\/em><\/span>).\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Of course, one website alone can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t change the gendered face of children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s publishing, but for now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pleased to report on a cultural space in which <\/span>sex distinctions aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t being mined, magnified, and marketed to sell things to kids.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0On my own parenting “smile meter,” that scores a big grin indeed.<\/span> <\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of my \u00c2\u00a0favorite new websites is www.sweetonbooks.com.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Founded, written, and edited by two book-loving moms who live in my hometown of Larchmont, New York, Sweet On Books offers children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book recommendations for kids at all literacy levels, from picture books and short chapter readers to novels for middle-schoolers and beyond.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0This appealing, user-friendly website is ideal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1925,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21095],"tags":[400,2397,21395,4374,100],"class_list":["post-1865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-beyond-pink-and-blue","tag-book-reviews","tag-boys","tag-girls","tag-parenting","tag-youth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1925"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1865\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}