Gender in Children’s Literature: Through or Beyond Conventions?

Abstract

Gender has always been considered as a basal issue in the field of Children’s Literature. Since children are receptive to the values and impressed by the ideas expounded in what they read, literary texts addressed to children are not just simply for entertainment; they also reflect positively all of society, especially the marginalized. Children’s Literature should inspire and enthuse its audience, while it could be a means of escape, a sanctuary from repression, and a “secret garden” within which children can identify with and rejoice in themselves. In order to illustrate how gender is used both negatively and detrimentally to the perception of the self, and then to examine whether the “sacrifice” of the story for socially correct writing is acceptable or desirable, we will examine in this paper indicatively, but representatively, the presentation of gender in various texts for children, from fairy tales and nursery rhymes to classic or modern novels and adolescents’ fictions. Finally, as this brief study shows, though Children’s Literature cannot on its own subvert ideology, gender definitions, or gender stereotypes, it could shape a new basis for thinking about individuality and humanity, by challenging children to question and to cogitate.