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By Martha Brockenbrough
MSN Cinemama
Learn more about kids' entertainment on MSN's Mom & Pop Culture
Disagreeing with a librarian feels wrong, like telling your grandma her hat is ugly. But I'm going to do it anyway, after reading what I read recently in the School Library Journal.
Diantha McBride, you might have 30 years' experience as a librarian. But when you told publishers to make more main characters boys so that more boys will read about them, you gave me no choice.
This idea stinks.
I get where you're coming from. But the problem isn't the books, it's the way we're raising our boys. If they aren't willing to read about girls, and if we're indulging that sort of nonsense, then we are raising boys who will have a hard time functioning in a world where girls play serious roles. In other words, the real world.
This is a vital topic for parents who like pop culture. The stories we watch and read are key tools for teaching both tolerance and empathy. (Here's an excellent essay by author Mitali Perkins on the topic.) We can't raise good people without thinking of those things, and if McBride's argument is any indication, we're doing a terrible job.
Here's what she said in her School Library Journal piece:
"I've noticed that lots of books with female characters aren't really about being female. In fact, in many cases, the main characters could just as easily have been males—and that would make my job a lot easier ... a novel like Ann Halam's 'Siberia' (Random House, 2005) could have included a male protagonist ... Am I being silly? Probably, but some of our boys have never read a complete book in their lives. It's important to offer them good, appealing stories, and, sad to say, that means stories with prominent male characters."
To understand how problematic the idea is, swap in "white characters" for "male characters." It's admittedly hard to do because most characters in mainstream, popular fiction are white already.
There are some exceptions, of course. In "Twilight," the love interest Jacob is Native American, and, regardless of how well you think author Stephenie Meyer handled the culture, it's remarkable in that it's not in any way a series about race. Most books featuring nonwhite characters deal overtly with the reality of racial differences in some way or another.
My guess is that most people would be embarrassed to admit they wouldn't buy a book because the main character wasn't white. Why we're more comfortable denigrating books with female characters is a mystery. Whenever we cross a book off the list because it isn't about people like us, though, we should be ashamed. And we shouldn't let our kids get away with this.
We need to teach them to take an interest in all sorts of stories, not just the ones that feature kids like them. This means exposing them to a lot of different stuff. We should, of course, encourage kids to find themselves in books.
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