By Allison McDonald Feb 16, 2019 Ages 4-13 I love strong female characters because they mirror the girls and women in my own life. We found a larger male-to-female ratio for non-fiction compared to fiction books, B = 0.29, Z = 3.46, p < .001, OR = 1.33, 95% CI = [1.13, 1.57] (Fig 3C). here. McCabe and colleagues found that male protagonists were overrepresented compared to female protagonists across all sources. Anne of Green Gables is the classic children's book by L M Montgomery, the inspiration for the Netflix Original series Anne with an E. Watch it now!Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are in for a big surprise. With such awareness, there may be a motivation to ensure parity in the gender of childrens book characters. Although the current approach does not guarantee a direct link to reading rates, it nevertheless addresses a critical question about publicationnamely, whether books featuring male versus female protagonists are more likely to be published. They are waiting for an orphan boy to help with the work at Green Gables - but a skinny, red-haired girl turns up instead. The Magic Paintbrush shows you how Shen stands up to the corrupt emperor using her wit and continues to use her gift for the greater good. Thanks !! The dotted line at 0.5 denotes parity. Why does a mysterious man, who claims to be a busker, writer, and artist, show up every time something bad happens? $13.19 $21.99 Save 40%. The descriptions of the time and place are so well done the reader is easily transported there. Tags: chapter-books , children-s , childrens-classics , classics , elementary , fairy-tales , middle-grade , read-alouds For instances in which the central characters name was gender-ambiguous, where no name was provided, or where the character was ungendered or identified as non-binary, books were excluded from further analysis (n = 161, or 2.45% of the dataset). authors picked The decision sharply curtails a policy that has long been a pillar of American higher education. as one of their favorite books, and they share See the next set of analyses for additional context in relation to these main effects. why you should read it. No, Is the Subject Area "Libraries" applicable to this article? McKinley. The cultural shift now being called for is needed on a policy, school district, and classroom level. We think you will like But when tragedy strikes, Rachel and Fiona are forced to come together to confront their pasts, and the adults theyre becoming. This evocative coming-of-age novel highlights the enduring power of female friendship as it follows the lives of two young women: Rachel Rivkin and Fiona Larkin. edit: I did not expect this many replies, the people on this sub are so kind and helpful!! She is angry and confused, and although her new foster home is a good one, she is so used to things not working out, she can't help sabotaging the situation. Discrepancies were resolved by discussion between the two coders. Braiding Sweetgrass, by. Three years into her graduate studies at a demanding Boston university, the unnamed narrator in Weike Wangs, Graham Cavanaughs second wife, Audra, longs to become closer with his first wife, Elspeth, and chooses to befriend her despite her husbands disapproval. Not all heroes wear capes! The best literary content from around the web delivered straight to your inbox, every Sunday. As soon as Pollyanna arrives in Beldingsville to live with her strict and dutiful maiden aunt, she begins to brighten up everybody's life. 8,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Anne of Green Gables For books where the author was listed as a publishing company or an organization, or when the author used gender-neutral pronouns, books were excluded from further analysis (n = 40, or 0.61% of the dataset). Whats so mesmerizing about McCandlesss story, for those who cant resist it, is his utter belief (saintly in its way) that the physical journey is in fact a quest, a kind of soul-searching that leads to enlightenment. Meet your next favorite book Join Goodreads Listopia Classic Literature with Female Protagonists Any genre and age range. 1 A dream come true for a book lover like Amanda. Yes Yet another potential reason for male overrepresentation is that it reflects linguistic properties. However, future research would do well to examine trends in the representation of non-binary protagonists to better understand gender diversity in childrens books. If you want to feel inspired and completely empowered, be sure to add these books to your TBR pile. Marking the 100th birthday of Gwendolyn Brooks, this powerful picture book is a celebration of the diversity of our world. Overflowing with soulful stories that resonate so deeply it could start a kind of revolution in remembering. By contrast, there was gender parity in fiction when the characters were human (0.95:1, 2 = 0.51, p = .473) and in non-fiction when the characters were non-human (1:1, 2 = 0.00, p = 1.00). In fact, recent work suggests that exposure to counter-stereotypical protagonists in books can reduce childrens endorsement of gender stereotypes [66] and promote less stereotypical behavior [67]. For my college coursework I'm doing an investigation into female representation in children's (around age 9-11) literature and how (if) that's changed over time. Narnia meets traditional Indigenous stories of the sky and constellations in an epic middle-grade fantasy series from award-winning author David Robertson.Morgan and Eli, two Indigenous children forced away from their families and communities, are brought together in a foster home in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Honey for a Teenager's Heart. Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert are in for a big surprise. When my mother, Denise, died aged 43, 17-year-old me arrived back to the place where Id made mud pies and happy memories that would never be the same again. by. as one of their favorite books, and they share Elizabeth Bennet Jane Austen created several inspiring, memorable heroines, but the one that made us all want to be feminist was none other than Pride and Prejudice 's Elizabeth Bennet. When the characters were human, they depicted more female protagonists (0.75:1, 2 = 28.32, p < .001). First, to better understand the effect of author gender, we compared male and female authors when books were written for younger versus older children (Fig 5A) and when the books involved human versus non-human protagonists (Fig 5B). Although male authors consistently overrepresented male characters in books for older children across the entire 60-year period, female authors decreased their overrepresentation of male characters in these books over time (B = -0.03, Z = -2.76, p = .006, OR = 0.97, 95% CI = [0.95, 0.99]). Perhaps no oneincluding Kerouacembodies this characteristic restlessness more purely than Chris McCandless, the subject of Jon Krakauers Into the Wild. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. After all, they are brave, innovative, powerful, and provocative, in all the best ways. The shaded region shows the standard error of the binomial logistic regression model fit. The next set of analyses targeted our second question of interest by examining the extent to which author gender (male vs. female), target audience (age of children), character type (human vs. non-human), and genre (fiction vs. non-fiction) affected the male-to-female ratio of central characters. Each of these picks has earned at least a four-star average rating from fellow readersreviews from kids and parents alike. I have read this book many times and love it more each time. Conversely, female authors showed significantly less male overrepresentation as the age of the target audience increased (B = -0.25, Z = -5.88, p < .001, OR = 0.78, 95% CI = [0.71, 0.84]). classic children's books. Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. Joan Fortier is a southern belle and socialite in 1950s Houston, Texas. In English, female is the marked (irregular) category because the affix fe is added to the unmarked (standard) form of male. Produced by Rob Szypko , Asthaa Chaturvedi . flag. Data curation, why you should read it. For books with multiple authors, books were excluded from all analyses if both male and female individuals held authorship (n = 68, or 1.03% of the dataset) but were retained if all authors identified with the same gender. While I crumbled, my tree stood tall, cool its sturdiness momentarily reassuring. No other two- or three-way interactions reached statistical significance (all ps >.05). The descriptions of Prince Edward Island enticed me to visit this enchanting place. Children are easily impressionable, so it is crucial that they are taught at an early age that women are capable of achieving whatever they want, without any help from men. I loved Pollyanna when I read it as a young girl and patterned my life after her positive thinking. Yes Third, there was a significant two-way interaction between character type and genre, B = 1.64, Z = 3.54, p < .001, OR = 5.13, 95% CI = [2.06, 12.86] (Fig 4C), such that there was male overrepresentation in fiction but only if the characters were non-human (male-to-female ratio = 3.09:1, 2 = 93.24, p < .001). Symbolic annihilation is also readily apparent in media targeted towards children, where the negative consequences on self-worth and belonging may be especially detrimental [13]. Anne of Green Gables is the classic children's book by L M Montgomery, the inspiration for the Netflix Original series Anne with an E. Watch it now! Neither male nor female authors significantly decreased their representation of male non-human characters, but when books targeted towards teens were excluded from this analysis, we found a significant trend towards parity for male authors (B = -0.02, Z = -1.96, p = 0.0499, OR = 0.98, 95% CI = [0.96, 0.99]) and a marginal trend for female authors (B = -0.02, Z = -1.77 p = 0.077, OR = 0.98, 95% CI = [0.95, 1.00]). 17 Books with Fierce Female Protagonists. by Jessica Mizzi. To this end, we examined each moderator, and the corresponding interactions, across time. These attitudes of fearlessness, positive thinking, and resourcefulness shaped my life and helped me realize many of my dreams, including being a published author. You can opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information anytime. Pinterest These picture books with strong female characters show gender shouldn't be a barrier to achieving your goals. As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer asks questions of nature with the tools of science. Its written with such tender knowing that perhaps it should be given to every child and adult in the world. Discover why each book is one of Jacqueline's In particular, explanations are needed for why there is greater parity for human characters when the books are fiction and for non-human characters when the books are non-fiction. Male authors overrepresented male protagonists across all age groups, and there was a trend of increasing male overrepresentation as a function of the age of the target audience in books authored by males, though this effect did not reach statistical significance (B = 0.11, Z = 1.81, p = .071, OR = 1.12, 95% CI = [0.99, 1.27]). We also included age of the target audience as well as book genre (fiction vs. non-fiction), which, to our knowledge, have not been previously examined. To summarize, the primary aims of the present study were two-fold: (1) to provide an up-to-date estimate of the rates of gender representation in books published within the last two decades, relative to earlier years; and (2) to examine the effect of potential moderators of gender representation across this timeframe. Melissa Scrivner Loves masterful debut thriller centers on a woman named Lola who lives in South Central Los Angeles and is involved in the Crenshaw Six, a small but powerful gang. 2 17 Writing review & editing. show more. If you do see her, its best not to approach her before shes had her coffee. Full of humour and delightful illustrations, this book will teach kids as long as they keep trying, they will succeed despite the obstacles along the way. The story is told from the point of view of Morgan, a thirteen-year-old indigenous girl who has been in foster care since she was three years old. (shelved 1 time as classic-children-literature) avg rating 4.09 13,246 ratings published 1946. For far too long, female protagonists were rare in literature, living in the shadows of their male counterparts. There was some improvement in the frequency of female characters across the twentieth century, but even the more recent books in their sample (i.e., 19901999) depicted male characters with greater frequency (male-to-female ratio 1.2:1). Browse their picks for the best books about authors picked However, male protagonists tended to be overrepresented in fiction books targeted to younger children, and overrepresentation decreased as the age of the target audience increased (B = -0.21, Z = -5.65, p < .001, OR = 0.81, 95% CI = [0.75, 0.87]). The only catch? Additionally, we only included books for which the gender of the book author was identifiable and matched for all authors if there was more than one (see below for details). Elizabeth Gilbert says this book is 'like a hymn of love to the world, It explores how through listening to the lessons plants teach us, we can enable a cycle of reciprocal flourishing - a tender reminder of the damage that's been done, yet a hopeful and encouraging call towards healing the world we share with so many species. An analysis of thousands of children's books published in the last 60 years suggests that, while a higher proportion of books now feature female protagonists, male protagonists remain overrepresented. Growing up, I read every book. list created March 24th, 2016 by deleted user. A potential explanation for the discrepancy is that these studies have been limited in scope, with potentially confounding variables, such as character type and author gender, not accounted for in the analyses. It is also worth noting that the gender coding in the present study was based on a strict dichotomy of male versus female. The world of Cammie Deveau, a young girl with more than her fair share of disadvantages, is described well. Gender coding decisions were made based on normative understandings of gendered nouns (e.g., boy, girl) and pronouns (e.g., he, she). She grows up quickly as she encounters everything from toxic friendships, damaging love affairs, and difficult decisions that change her future. That his journey ends badly somehow seems to validate his belief. Eloquent A heart-rending drama of human yearning." In this meditation on love and life and loss, we are soothed by the garden, the beehive, the orchard; by the mourning doves and dung-filled dirt and knots of dead bees that he reaches for to nourish and calm and heal. We then characterized target audience using six age groups and determined coding according to the minimum age recommendation since some sources used the form X and up to specify the target age range: infant/toddler (0 to 2 years), preschool (3 to 5 years), early elementary (6 to 8 years), middle elementary (9 to 10 years), late elementary (11 to 12 years), and teen (13 to 16 years). Copyright 2021 | All Rights Reserved | Empowered by Coffee, Breaking Down Strong Female Characters In Literature, The Problem With "Girl" Books, "Boy" Books, And, 8 Indian Authors Share Their Favourite Books Of 2018, The Problem With Girl Books, Boy Books, And Gendered Reading. Often referred to as symbolic annihilation, disproportionate gender representation negatively impacts women (and men alike) by sustaining explicit and implicit biases against the female gender and diminishing womens sense of self-worth and belonging [12]. Check out these 20 children's books featuring strong female characters. e0260566. Error bars denote 95% confidence intervals for proportion estimates. However, other research suggests that stereotypes permeate childrens books at multiple levels, including text [14, 30, 62] and illustrations [32, 63]. As noted above, all books were published or reprinted between 1960 and 2020. You must have a goodreads account to vote. Please try again later. list created August 3rd, 2018 But when Olive starts having visions of her mom, she turns to her father for help, and they both begin to uncover the truth about Billie. Abby, like most high school girls, wants to be liked, have friends, go to dances, and dress in the latest fashions. Because of the smaller number of books for teens in our sample, as a robustness check, we ran all analyses on the full set (including teens) and the subset of books targeted to children under age 13. Discover why each book is one of Cheryl's Such male overrepresentation is especially pervasive in media, including primetime television programming and television commercials [7, 8], virtual platforms [9, 10], and sports news coverage [11]. Of the titles meeting inclusion criteria for analysis (n = 3,280), we coded for: (1) gender of central character, (2) publication year, (3) gender of book author, (4) age of target audience, (5) character type (human vs. non-human), and (6) book genre (fiction vs. non-fiction). Chess is always looking back, always wanting something more than she has. Over the past decades, increased female representation in titles, central roles, and pictures appears to indicate that more and more authors of children's books are aware of and sensitive to women's changing roles (Tsao, 2008). Need an idea what to read next? the spirit of Jack Kerouacs On the Road. The differential frequency of male and female characters in media might be less consequential if the accompanying content counteracted the disproportionate numbers. As needed, further clarification was sought from the book itself (when freely accessible online), or additional Google searches were conducted to supplement the information found in the book description (e.g., to determine author gender if pronouns were not provided or to determine the original publication year if the book was a reprint edition). Classic poetry, plays, and nonfiction works may be included as well, as long as they have a female subject or are written from a female perspective. McCandless dared to go to the limits, even if it meant there was no return. Maeve has always been confident, but when she returns home to the legendary Hotel of the Muses, she finds herself in a perplexing situation, unsure of what to do next. Finally, although previous findings have suggested that female authors represent male and female characters at equitable rates [23, 34], no study to date has discussed the interaction between author gender and other important variables, namely character type and target audience. We compared fiction and non-fiction books when they involved human versus non-human characters (Fig 5C) and when the target audience was younger versus older children (Fig 5D). 32 Given the range of publication dates, the size of our dataset was comparable to that of McCabe et al. By analyzing trends in the publication of books featuring male versus female protagonists over the last 60 years, while also considering the influence of previously unexamined variables, such as age of the target audience and book genre, we can better understand where (if at all) progress towards gender parity has been most successful and identify where future work may be needed to achieve equitable gender representation in childrens books. Our data point to two such contexts: with human characters in fiction and with non-human characters in non-fiction. When a little girl comes across a dragon howling in pain, she tries to use the objects in her bag to get rid of a bone that is stuck in its teeth. The plot is simple: a stubborn teenager named Sarah (Jennifer Connelly) inadvertently wishes her baby brother . show more. Whats so mesmerizing about McCandlesss story, for those who cant resist it, is his utter belief (saintly in its way) that the physical journey is in fact a quest, a kind of soul-searching that leads to enlightenment. 15,414. From the list on First, she is kissed by Daniel, her ultimate crush. Though this was presumably because of the way society functioned, it only maintained the idea that women are secondary to men. [23] examined the role of author gender on the proportion of male and female protagonists. Tension builds as the weather gets colder in Minnesota and Abby fears being found out. The dotted line at 0.5 denotes parity. Chronically ill and disabled, shes never uncovered a new app, product, or study as directly beneficial to emotional health as time spent observing the natural world. The 'glad game' she plays, of finding a silver lining in every cloud, transforms the sick, the lonely and the plain miserable - until one day something so terrible happens that even Pollyanna doesn't know how to feel glad about it. She vastly prefers the imaginary world to the real one, but grudgingly emerges from her writing cave on occasion. Canada, Thus, it appears to be the combination of character type and genre that results in significant male overrepresentation, rather than character type or genre alone. If no explicit, text-based gender identification was provided other than the name of the character, then we determined gender based on whether the name was commonly recognized as masculine or feminine (as done by [23]). Next, we further examined the effect of book genre. We are experiencing technical difficulties. This energetic crew will get lost in space, orbit the sun, dodge asteroids, and travel to Mars. broad scope, and wide readership a perfect fit for your research every time. No, Is the Subject Area "Psychological attitudes" applicable to this article? The aforementioned effects did not indicate any interactions with publication year, suggesting stability of these effects across time. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566.g003. Validation, Books Based on Your Favorite Taylor Swift Era, Fiction by Arab and Arab American Authors, Celebrate Black Food with Toni Tipton Martin, Cook a Soul Food Holiday Meal With Rosie Mayes. Accumulating evidence suggests that, in childrens literature, male characters are more prevalent than female characters [1420], including in titles and illustrations [21]. Take the top four books for example: The Wonky Donkey (2009) by Craig Smith, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Meltdown (2018) by Jeff Kinney, Room on the Broom (2001) by Julia Donaldson, and Duck on a. by Cathy Hapka and Ellen Vandenberg, illustrated by Gillian Reid. why you should read it. Though this was presumably because of the way society functioned, it only maintained the idea that women are secondary to men. The only difference between her and everyone else is she and her family are homeless and living in her mom's van, and Abby doesn't want anyone to know. The film is an odd combination of dark fantasy, otherworldly scenery and villain showmanship in the form of David Bowie song numbers. Jane Carruth (Adapted By) 4.03 avg rating 386,423 ratings. Called the work of "a mesmerizing storyteller with deep compassion and memorable prose" (Publishers Weekly) and the book that, "anyone interested in natural history, botany, protecting nature, or Native American culture will love," by Library Journal, Braiding Sweetgrass is poised to be a classic of nature writing. Our findings reveal important effects of all the variables of interest. We conducted an entirely web-based analysis of the gender representation of central characters in childrens books published between 1960 and 2020. Even if explicit gender discrimination occurs less frequently today than in the past, implicit attitudes about females being submissive and less worthy than males remain pervasive [47, 48]. By contrast, female authors represented the gender of protagonists more equitably and even overrepresented female characters in books targeted to older children. Across a sample of 200 childrens books published between 1995 and 2001, they reported that female authors depicted male and female characters in comparable numbers, whereas male authors overrepresented male characters. Inter-rater reliability was high ( > 0.90 for all variables of interest). 1 A portal opens to another reality, Ask, bringing them onto frozen, barren grounds, where they meet Ochek (Fisher). One way to do that is to start reading books with strong female protagonists in them. ; Ten Apples Up On Top! by. (c) Eleanor Porter 1994 (P) Penguin Audio 2020. Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude is a sustained meditation on that which goes away - loved ones, the seasons, the earth as we know it - that tries to find solace in the processes of the garden and the orchard. The dotted line reflects parity (1:1 male-to-female ratio). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260566.g002. For example, although we did not find that the male-to-female ratio of central characters depended on an interaction between character type and age of the target audience, it is nevertheless possible that younger children are read more books with non-human characters than older children, and thus may experience greater exposure to male characters. list created February 26th, 2010 avg rating 4.33 8,028,272 ratings published 2008. Just for joining youll get personalized recommendations on your dashboard daily and features only for members. Does she win, or does something get in her way? All reported effects hold when the books for teens are excluded, unless otherwise indicated. Amanda is in Paris where she works as a volunteer in a famous bookstore. Yes Illustrator gender was not coded since the present investigation relied solely on textual information to examine gender representation. Parents preferences for books with male characters may stem from their own experience with older, classic books [55]. Great world building and interesting animal characters. All search queries were conducted in Summer 2019 and yielded 6,580 unique hits from 67 sources (see OSF for links). Even when female characters appear as protagonists, they are often portrayed as more emotional [19, 30], less active [64], and less associated with STEM [63, 65]. This approach was used to gauge widespread trends in gender representation across the 60-year period of interest, and it is an approach that overcomes limitations of previous studies, which have typically restricted their analyses to award-winning titles or books available in a specific library or school setting. And then writing it all down, telling the story. Olive has grown to be extremely distant and quiet, shying away from all of her relationships, including the one she has with her father. Cece Buchanan, Joans best friend, is either her chaperone or her partner-in-crime, depending on whom you ask. As for the gender of the central character, author gender was coded as male or female according to the gender pronouns, and if necessary, based on the authors name. Writing original draft, The challenge with the male generic is that even when intended to inclusively refer to all genders, the gender bias in prototypicality may lead people to interpret the male generic as referring specifically to males [60]. You must have a goodreads account to vote. With Annie Besants eccentric storytelling and Rayika Sens vibrant illustrations, The Dragons Toothache exhibits how any problem can be fixed, if not alone then, with the help of friends. Given the limited number of books with non-binary central characters, we did not formally assess this category. Male authors depicted more male protagonists regardless of character type (male-to-female ratio: human = 2.95:1, 2 = 107.98, p < .001; non-human = 4.19:1, 2 = 66.87, p < .001).