How to Survive Anything - Gender Inequality

Last week I cataloged two items for the children's graphic novel collection. These two books made me very angry:

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

Winchell Mink

It's always hard to write about books that I just didn't care for. After all, just because I didn't like it doesn't necessarily mean that you won't, and it certainly doesn't mean that it's a bad book and that no one should read it. So I hope that if I ever say that I didn't like something, you'll take that with a grain of salt.

That said, here's what I have to say about a book that I really just didn't care for. The book has its good points too, so I'll try to highlight those instead of its bad points:

Winchell Mink: The Misadventure Begins is a wacky story about a boy who is constantly being tormented by a bully. As Winchell's birthday draws near, he decides to take matters into his own hands and experience life it its fullest. Winchell, along with his pet turtle Hannibal, heads toward the forbidden cliff near his home and finds himself stuck on a ledge. The only person (or turtle) around to help Winchell is Hannibal, who's idea of a solution is to switch bodies with him. And so beings Winchell Mink's crazy adventures in time travel and body-snatching. The good news about this is that Winchell gets to play baseball as a dinosaur. The bad news is that Clayton, the bully who is cruelest to Winchell, seems to be following him during these adventures. How will Winchell get home? Will he ever find his body again? Will Clayton dissect Winchell in his turtle form during science class?

This book is filled with lots of zany humor that is truly laugh-out-loud funny. Sarcasm and puns abound, and several of the scenes in this book are really enjoyable. The one problem is that there isn't really much of an actual plot to tie all of these zany adventures together. The body-snatching seems completely random, and jumping from one adventure to another without transitions is just as exhausting for the reader as it is for Winchell. I'd really suggest that readers perhaps not sit down and read large chunks of this book in one sitting. Taking a break between segments of the story might make the lack of transitions easier to handle.

Overall Grade: C-