Don’t despair at the tide of cultural glitter swamping young girls nowadays. There are still writers producing funky female characters who don’t catch their knickers in a twist at the prospect of a difficult challenge. Here are some of the bestA blight of restrictive suffixes,marking books out as “for girls” or ”for boys”, has crept over the kids’ publishing landscape during the past couple of decades – and, and while more enlightened publishers acquire now sworn off explicit gender division,girls of picture-book age are still overwhelmed with princess-pink, sparkly-pony messaging. Be pretty, and passive and vapid,and your reward will be to remain so, while the prince you married gets on with the juicy business of living. But where are nowadays’s equals of Princess Smartypants – intriguing, or funny,unformulaic, and unbranded? Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com