They seem innocent enough when you first glance at them. They are yet another installment in the "survival guide" genre, telling kids how to deal with various circumstances. These titles stand out with their graphic novel approach to the genre.
A closer look, however, shows that apparently boys and girls need to be prepared to survive very different circumstances. The boys' book give useful advice on how to handle shark attacks, how to navigate using the stars, and how to escape from quicksand. The girls' book, on the other hand, deals with more social elements: How to throw a great sleepover, how to handle a fight with your BFF, and how to get ready for soccer try-outs.
Seriously? According to these books, all boys are outdoorsmen in exotic lands, while girls have nothing at all to worry about except for parents, zits, and friends. This is so insulting to members of both genders. Boys need a guide to social situations just as much as girls do since I'm pretty sure that boys need to interact with their peers too. And there is absolutely no reason why a girl won't need advice on how to prevent a polar bear from attacking you. Pretty sure that the polar bear doesn't care what your gender is.
There is a single survival tip that can be found in both the boys' and girls' volumes: How to Survive a Zombie Attack. Clearly Scholastic's editors know what's really important. But even this piece of advice is presented on unequal footing. The girls' book encourages girls to use their brains and suggests evasion tactics. The boys' book includes some instruction on evasion, but also suggests creating a shelter and bonking zombies on the head with a baseball bat as a way of stopping them. So while girls get to run away, boys get to kick some zombie butt.
What's especially irritating is that on the cover of the girls' book we see a girl harnessed up on a zip line, seemingly ready for adventure. But there is no adventure advice to be found in this graphic novel. Of course, the fact that the girl is also holding her cell phone should probably have been a hint.
Overall Grade: D
3 comments:
Those books really piss me off, too. In the same vein, The Dangerous Book for Boys/Daring Book for Girls tend to annoy me. I just end up recommending the Boys book to everyone - it's balanced enough to have some poetry in it, at least. Yeah, the Girls one is decent, too, but EVERYONE wants to know how to start a campfire and play poker.
Actually, there was quite a big discussion about these books! Scholastic responded to concerns and will be doing no further printings of these books. So I imagine you know all of this, but just in case...
http://oomscholasticblog.com/2012/06/scholastic-responds-to-concerns-about-how-to-survive-anything-series.html
AND this is the link to the blogger who I think started a lot of the talk. http://interactivereader.blogspot.com/2012/06/sexist-much.html
Danielle, I saw some of the discussion online but hadn't heard that Scholastic was going to stop printing. That's great news! Thanks for sharing.
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