JOHNATHAN Emmett said books aimed at boys were being squeezed out due to the large proportion of women in publishing jobs.
WE’RE used to hearing that boys are lagging behind girls when it comes to levels of literacy but now a leading children’s author has warned that women in the publishing industry could be to blame.
Jonathan Emmett said books aimed at boys were being squeezed out due to the large proportion of women in publishing jobs, from editors to reviewers.
The writer of books such as Bringing Down the Moon and Pigs Might Fly quoted figures suggesting that 95 per cent of picture books are bought by women and that boys are being starved of books featuring characters such as pirates
or astronauts.
or astronauts.
“I am arguing that this is because the industry is dominated by female gatekeepers,” he said.
“Mums and grans buy books – that’s what’s driving the market.
“They read the book and then there’s a tendency for the book to reflect their tastes.
“It is one of the things that leads boys, and girls with boy-typical tastes to say, ‘I am not interested in that kind of content, I am more interested in video games’.”
His own study of newspaper reviews of children’s books found that two-fifths of fiction books were written by men but that two-thirds were reviewed by women.
Men also wrote nearly half of picture books but more than four-fifths were reviewed by women.
2 comments:
This is right up there with the inflammatory argument that books are dying. There are plenty of 'men' in the business and plenty of books with central male protagonists (written by the likes of Charlie Higson, Anthony Horowitz, Rick Riordan, Eoin Colfer, Paul Stewart, James Patterson, David Hill, Brian Falkner etc..etc..etc...). A bigger concern is that boys might be dissuaded from reading books that feature the other half of the world population by well meaning adults whether male or female.
He's right, and that Harriet Potter series is a perfect example.
— Jules Older
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