Friday, February 3, 2017

4 to 1

I was reading Reviving Ophelia the other day, because I have a daughter and I want to get a jump on adolescence, because my eldest son is in it and it seems to be an important time. She noted that children's books with male characters outnumber female characters by four to one. I've been noticing that as I sweep up all the free children's books (Including Beatrix Potter's first one) in my poverty, I'm noting this is often true. My beautiful daughter doesn't really like to be read to these days, and has a bit of a destructive and masochistic streak at the moment, but she does like to turn pages, so cardboard books are the best. She really liked a book about baby faces. Nowadays she doesn't have the patience and walks away. There was a stage where she kept handing it to us, and then when we read she took the book away or walked away. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure if there are any females in that book. I need to get the one with girl faces around the world. I thought about my sons who don't pick books with female narrators. What if the gender was switched in the Potter books? A female Potter and Weasley, and a male Hermione.

Eragon became available from the digital library. I'll read it after I finish a book on the five hinderances.