(Untitled)

[baka_kit]

So, that WSJ article.

A lot of people have interesting things to say about it. So of course I'm tossing in my two cents.

Ahem.

Ms. Gurdon can take her pearl-clutching and her gender-segregated list of appropriate reads and shove them somewhere inappropriate.I'm writing the books I wish had been in the school library when I was a kid. Books

Comments

[ultharkitty]

Gender-segregated recommended reading? Holy crap, the idea that someone thinks that's a good plan makes me feel seriously queasy.

As for your reasons for writing what you write: rock on :D

[baka_kit]

Thank you! :D

Even my grown-up books are books I wish were out there for me to read, but the YA books feel kind of like a personal mission, in a way. (Which has had the unfortunate side-effect of paralyzing me on the one that's waiting for revision. *facepalm*)

[baka_kit]

Your first paragraph pretty much sums it up. Stupid via osmosis. ;)

[zornhau]

I think there is a place for books portraying competent male protagonists, but I'm talking about "Middle Grade" really, rather than YA.

[baka_kit]

There's a place for portraying competent EVERYBODY protagonists. And a place for both fluffy and dark stories. And (speaking as someone who actually WORKED in a bookstore, rather than spending five minutes in one once, like the author's article) there are both fluffy and dark stories on the shelves. It's not the zero-sum game she seems to think it is.

[zornhau]

Agreed. It's just that as a father of a boy (and a girl, but she's still on much younger books), I see a lot of books designed to make boys introspect, but not so many showing them how to be men.

It's true even in pre-school story books. You never get a competent knight.

Re: TW for mention of self-harm

[baka_kit]

*nods*

Speaking as someone who was on the lighter end of the self-harm spectrum (slamming my arm repeatedly in a door and compulsively picking open accidental cuts) long before anybody ever HEARD of cutting, I can say definitively that the author is full of shit.