Excessive Pink and Glitteriness
October 12th, 2007 by Vanessa
There’s an interesting article by Mary Hoffman in the Guardian today discussing the pervasiveness of pink and glittery books for girls about princesses and the like and the way that these books seem to be almost entirely aimed at conditioning little girls into believing that life can – and should -be like a Disney cartoon and that their main concerns in life should be excessive consumerism and finding a partner for the perfect pink and glittery wedding.
As she says “Walk into any bookshop and you will find several walls of titles featuring princesses, fairies and other pink, glittery characters. Type “princess” into Amazon and you get nearly 9,000 titles; try “fairies” and you get another 15,000″.
This is something I’ve been finding as I select the stock for the shop. Yes, girls want to read about princesses and fairies but it shouldn’t be all that’s on offer to them. So while I’ll stock Meg Cabot’s Princess Diaries series (which I rather like personally) I’m drawing the line at the Rainbow Fairies and related series. Nothing by Jordan-I-Mean-Katie-Price will be allowed over the threshold – her pony books being among the worst books I’ve ever read. But if girls want to read about dancing there will be Noel Streatfeild’s classic Ballet Shoes which shows girls working hard to achieve there dream, if they want princesses, how about A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett? As for ponies, there will be none of the pastel-coloured creatures with ribons in their manes but our own Jill Crewe and Noel Bramley from the books that we publish – resourceful and competent whilst still having fun. Don’t assume though that there will be just classics on the shelves or nothing that aspires to girls’ pink and glittery sides, but that we do want to promote balance. Talking to friends, it appears that parents are very keen on that idea!
It’s a tough job to balance commercial necessities with principles but we’ll do our best to stick it out. And I absolutely won’t budge on Jordan’s books. However the Doc says that it is too much to stick a note on the counter to the effect that we will order anything and append to it the message: “However, please do not ask us to order books by Jordan as refusal and contempt often offend”…
Look on the bright side, at least Martina Cole hasn’t started writing children’s books, yet…
Oh, all those princesses and pink covers make me feel like puking! The fictional role models today’s girls are growing up with are truly appalling. As indeed are the real-life “role models”. Thank goodness I grew up at a time when girls aspired to be George Kirrin or Nadia Comaneci and not a Rainbow Fairy or Paris Hilton …
Writing as the mum of a little girl, I too find this push towards ‘learned helplessness’ annoying. I don’t mind pink and glittery – up to a point! – but the focus on appearance and waiting to be rescued isn’t going to help little girls much when they grow up.
Working hard to achieve a dream, that’s something to be proud about. I’ll be very happy if I can help teach my daughter to aim for that.
Ps – as I said, pink and glittery is fine in moderation – Sharing a Shell promises on its front cover to have glitter on every page and does not disappoint. But despite this it’s still a lovely, gentle parable that Beanie (and of course scores of other children) adore.
Posting on my site about your new shop!
I suppose the pink covers of children’s books are just getting them ready for some of the chick lit they’ll read when they’re older…
Womder how much of those pony books were written by Ms Price?
All this pink-ness drives me mad! If I’d been fed a diet of unremitting pap as a child I think my mother would have locked me in a box. We were brought up to do the rescuing, not wait to be rescued, which is more realistic when a little girl grows up.
One of my favourite princess books as a child (yes, I had a few, though I could not, and still cannot, stand pink!) was called the Paper Bag Princess. I’ve looked it up on Amazon and rejoice in the fact that it’s still available after *mumble* years. The blurb says “Princess Elizabeth is beautiful and rich and about to marry Prince Ronald. That is, until a dragon destroys her castle, burns all her clothes and carries off her prince! But Elizabeth’s not easily beaten and sets off to get Ronald back.” Yes, she gets her prince, but she has to fight for him, not wait until he rides by on a white horse!!
Incidentally my sister is called Elizabeth and it always cheesed me off that the princess was also called Elizabeth and not Anna, a much more princess-y name I think ,lol!
I always refused to wear pink as a child and anything with a pink cover is too reminiscent of Mills and Boon – what the local library staff quietly call “pink paperbacks”.
Is “The Little White Horse” (Elizabeth Goudge) still in print? You can have your horse and “princess” together there!
Recently back from Frankfurt Book Fair where I saw ‘The Princess Bible’ – not a guide book to everything you need to know about being a princess (like, say, Leith’s Cookery Bible), but a King James version stick in a glittery pink cover. Genius.
In terms of admirable princess books for little girls (and boys), Martin Waddell’s ‘The Tough Princess’ is brilliant. For the boys (and girls), I feel that ‘Prince Cinders’ falls into a similar catagory.
“However, please do not ask us to order books by Jordan as refusal and contempt often offend”…
You could make it more subtle by writing:
“However, please do not ask us to order books by Jordan as sarcastic laughter often confuses … ”
Very pleased to hear you’re reprinting Ruby Ferguson’s “Jill” books. Funny and down to earth stuff. I learnt such a lot from reading those books and hope my own writing will pass it on.
Little pink Bear is rather fond of Princess smartypants who refuses to get married to any of her suitors and turns the one who completes all her tasks into a big warty toad.
Generally she likes any books about dogs, not necessarily princess fairy dogs.