Girls Boys Books Toys

No previous collection of criticism has focused on gender in the broad range of children's literature. No previous collection has embraced both children's literature and material culture. Beverly Lyon Clark and Margaret R. Higonnet bring together twenty-two scholars to look closely at the complexities of children's culture. Girls, Boys, Books, Toys asks questions about how the gender symbolism of children's culture is constructed and resisted. What happens when women rewrite (or illustrate) nursery rhymes, adventure stories, and fairy tales told by men? How do the socially scripted plots for boys and girls change through time and across cultures? Have critics been blind to what women write about "masculine" topics? Can animal tales or doll stories displace tired commonplaces about gender, race, and class? Can different critical approaches—new historicism, narratology, or postcolonialism—enable us to gain leverage on the different implications of gender, age, race, and class in our readings of children's books and children's culture?

Tiny loves costumes! Tiny likes to dress up as an animal, or a doctor, or a butterfly. Tiny also prefers not to tell other children whether they are a boy or a girl. Tiny's friends don't mind, but when Tiny starts a new school their new friends can't help asking one question: "Tiny, are you a boy or are you a girl?" This brightly illustrated book will open a dialogue with children aged 3+ about gender diversity in a fun and creative way. Featuring a gender neutral protagonist, the book imparts an important message about identity and being who you want to be. Tiny's story will assist parents, family and teachers in giving children the space to express themselves fully, explore different identities and have fun at the same time.

In his follow-up to "The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl," Lyga delivers a disturbing, ripped-from-the-headlines novel about a seventh-grade boy who has a very adult relationship with his female teacher.

When Ros Ball and James Millar's son was born in 2010 they instantly felt people treated him differently to his big sister and started to tweet about what they experienced. What began as an attempt to retain their sanity in a pink and blue world became a life changing experiment about gender identity.

"A guide to the stages and issues in boys' development from birth to manhood"--Provided by publisher.

A seriously fun New Zealand toy story! Toys are made for playing with, but they are also serious business, as this remarkable story of New Zealanders and their toys makes clear. In Hello Girls and Boys! David Veart digs through a few centuries of pocket knives and plasticine to take us deep into the childhoods of Aotearoa - under the eye of mum or running wild at the end of the orchard, with a doll in the hand or an arrow in the ear, hula hooping or assembling kitsets. Veart tells a big story of how our two peoples made their fun on the far side of the ocean - Maori and Pakeha learned knucklebones from each other, young Aucklanders established the largest Meccano club in the world, and Fun Ho! and Torro, Lincoln and Luvme helped to build a successful local toy industry under the shade of import protection. But the book also covers little things and little people - homemade dolls and cereal toys, miniatures and marbles. From double happys and golliwogs to Buzzy Bees, tin canoes, Meccano and Tonka trucks - Hello Boys and Girls! revisits the crazes and collecting, playtimes and preoccupations of big and little New Zealand kids for generations.