Fairies drive diggers too (Anne Rooney)

We're going on a digger walk... MicroBint showed her
digger book to these two diggers

There is a little person in my family, known online as MicroBint. MicroBint likes diggers. Every Thursday, I take her on a digger walk. We take photos of the diggers we see and look at them later and talk about them.

The digger thing started a few weeks ago when I took her to a car boot sale. Before we got there, she asked if she could buy a digger. So bought we one. And then on the way home, we passed some children having what in the US would be called a yard sale and here doesn't have a name, and we bought another digger. So she had two diggers and was very happy with them.

That week, she took her diggers to nursery. The nursery assistant didn't really know how to deal with the diggers. I said, as I dropped her off, 'MicroBint has brought her two diggers today'. The nursery assistant asked if she had also brought any 'dollies'. No, she hadn't. Why would she? She had diggers to play with.

A week later, MicroBint asked me to buy her a digger book, which I duly did. It has wheels so you can roll it along - it's pretty good. The digger book is extremely popular, but I have had to nominate a couple of the digger-people to be be ladies because none of the drivers is female. This is more than a little disappointing as the author-illustrator is female.  The nursery assistant was equally baffled by the digger book:

MB: Look, I've brought my digger book.
NA: That's a nice top you have on.
MB: But my digger book...

To be fair, NA did then read the digger book to MB and a new girl, called Lottie. I looked on Amazon for reviews of the digger book. There is only one, by a parent who said that 'Eva' loves the book.

Since MB started nursery, she has started to like pink. And last week she said something made her 'like a princess'. I asked whether looking like a princess was good; she looked confused by the question. This week, we ordered a bridesmaid's dress for her, ad she asked if she could wear it on her digger walk. Perhaps princesses go on digger walks, too. On the latest digger walk, a foreman offered her a job driving diggers when she gets a bit bigger. She was very pleased - not every two-year-old has job offers lined up for later. I wonder if she will be able to wear a bridesmaid's dress? Sadly, there are no female digger drivers on our walks, so sooner or later she will realise that 'diggers aren't for girls'. I want to write a picture book called 'Fairies drive diggers too', but I'm pretty sure no publisher would touch it - because boys wouldn't like to see fairies in a digger.

But I think we're missing a trick by allowing polarisation. It's not just a matter of girls playing with diggers and boys with dolls as that still perpetuates the idea of separate domains even if you can switch between them (or visit, like a tourist). I might not like that MB is interested in princesses and pink,  but only because I think they will displace the diggers and spiders and the black fish she likes because it is the same colour as daddy's dressing gown. So could we have Barbie with a hard hat, and a fairy who drives a digger and if we aboslutely have to have f***ing Elsa (which we have avoided so far - Pikachu still rules!) can she at least wear dungarees and climb a tree? There should be no gendered activities or interests or colours or whatever, and books would be a good place to begin getting rid of them.

Anne Rooney

Unsuitable for Boys - Tamsyn Murray

I read a book about football last year. It was called Whatever Happened to Billy Parks by Gareth Roberts and I enjoyed it immensely. The main character was male. There were a lot of other male characters. There was a lot of football detail but that was OK, because I like football. The story was engaging, the writing rich and gorgeous and evocative. I closed the book at the end with a happy sigh and immediately passed it on to a friend. And then another. I recommended it to a few people too. You get the idea: I loved the book.

Now imagine someone had told me that book wasn't meant for me. "That's a book for men," they might have said. "You won't like it."

I like to think I would have told them to stick their gender preconceptions somewhere uncomfortable and read the book regardless. But what if I'd been less confident in my tastes and more swayed by the opinions of others? What if the person who said it to me was someone I should respect and listen to? What then? I might have put the book down and read something else...something safe and expected. And I would have missed out on the fabulous story and great writing. I would have missed that experience.

Now onto a less hypothetical situation. I had an enquiry about a school visit recently. It didn't come directly from a school but via a third party (who shall remain anonymous) and they wanted to know if I was free to visit a school. 'Sure,' I said, and gave some possible dates. A few days passed and I heard back from the very embarrassed third party: the school didn't want me. They wanted an author who was more suitable for boys.

I don't consider either myself or my writing to be unsuitable for boys. The Stunt Bunny series (featuring a female rabbit and her female owner) are popular with boys and girls. My events are (all modesty aside) a smash hit with boys and girls - they love hearing about my (girl) rabbits and the inspiration behind the Completely Cassidy books (my Powerpoint involves photos of my female dog and my daughter). My events are interactive - the kids get up and help me to tell the stories behind my books: they hula-hoop and plate spin and pretend to be rabbits and spiders and out-of-breath authors. And let me tell you, the boys are just as keen as the girls. Blimey, are they keen.

Occasionally, I get asked (usually by a boy) whether I will write a book with a male main character so that they can read it. I always feel sorry for the asker of this question, mostly because they are about to get something they probably didn't expect: a fiery lecture about how books are simply BOOKS, not gender-specific. I try to rein it in a bit - it's not the asker's fault, after all. Kids have always been taught that there are books for girls and books for boys. Thankfully, this is changing but it's definitely still a thing. I know girls will read books with boy MCs more readily than boys will read about girls but I think it's more because people tell boys they won't like books that feature girls. Several authors have told me stories about experiences similar to mine with the school booking (and there were worse stories too) so I know it's not an isolated experience. And I'm not bleating about a lost booking or missed income - I'm sad for the kids at that school. I'm worried that they are missing out on lots of fabulous books because some of the adults around them still think there are books for boys and books for girls. If books allow us to slip into someone else's shoes for a short time, what kind of message does that send - that it's OK for girls to pretend to be boys but heaven forfend boys should pretend to be girls?

When the fabulous Mary Hoffman heard what had happened to me, she said in my situation she would get a t-shirt made up that read 'Unsuitable for Boys'. So I've done exactly that and look forward to wearing it at every available opportunity. And then people will ask me about it. I can't wait to tell them what it means.