These must have been time warped here from 1974, because there is no publisher stupid enough to do this today.
Wow . . . it would be interesting and instructive to track down the folks responsible for writing and marketing these. I bet the âmarketingâ came first.
Iâd also be interested how the same-titled pieces in the books compare. Are the boysâ and girlsâ tactics vs. vampires the same, for example?
While my 11 year old (girl) would love both books, our other one would recoil at the subjects in the âboysâ book.
Sexist and generalizing, yeah, sure. But Iâm just not getting that blood boiling vibe. Itâs a good opportunity to talk to your kids about the issue of stereotyping and being open to all experiences.
Iâve seen a similar book before, but it was just called The Complete Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook. It had a few social crises (how to escape from a bad date, how to thwart an affectionate costumed mascot), but it was mainly the same as the book for boys.
The book for girls is a parody, isnât it? It has to be.
In before âBut but thatâs CENSORSHIP!!â trolls.
Cuz yeah, the difference between those two T of Contents is horrific.
Eight year olds, Dude.
Looks like only boys get to deal with vampires (the post may only be a partial list). Zombies seem to be gender neutral except for scale - boys get to deal with an invasion, girls an attack. I would hope that the advice for an invasion and attack are different but that seems to be the easiest comparison.
After reading through each bookâs topics I really feel the girlâs book is the only one offers any actual advice boy and girls could use. They really should be merged into one publication.
Is it me, or do the the tips âfor girlsâ have (at least in theory) a higher chance of being actually useful?
The stereotyping is⌠urghh⌠but the tips for boys seem to be mainly for rather idiotic, escapist stuff.
The covers are cropped in this image, but a quick search of Amazon shows that these titles were published by respected publisher Scholastic (of Harry Potter fame) inâŚwait for itâŚ2012.
These strike me as the kind of books that are usually written by legions of uncredited freelancers to fill a perceived marketing slot (the New Yorker had a fascinating article on how this kind of slush gets churned out, although my memory is failing me about when the article appeared), although there is a single author and illustrator credited.
Yep, thatâs pretty sad. Maybe they could kinda sorta get away with it if the juxtaposition wasnât so stark.
EDIT: I guess Scholastic is a little too powerful to be subdued by the angry mob with pitchforks.
The covers are cropped in this image, but a quick search of Amazon shows that these titles were published by respected publisher Scholastic (of Harry Potter fame)âŚ
Yes, because before Harry Potter, no one heard of Scholastic. Now, all I hear from the kids today is Scholatics this and Scholastic that⌠
New additions for banned book week - getting books taken down for sale is OK when they interfere with my personal viewpoint edition.
Well, thatâs kinda always the excuse. Funny, though, that people here need to be reminded of it.
Welp, no need to sex your crocodile; you just need to sex itâs dinner!
Youâre right. I would have read the boysâ book for fun, but I would have made actual use of a lot of the girlsâ book. But then, I habitually read my motherâs copies of Womenâs Day and Family Circle religiously every month from the age of, like, seven. And Iâd begin with the household tips. Huh. Until fairly recently, I even remembered the names of those particular columns. Anyway, I was the youngest male fan of Heloise I ever met.
Itâs not just that theyâre sexist ideas (would they not be better labelled as âHow to survive dangerous thingsâ and âhow to survive social thingsâ rather than âboysâ and âgirlsâ) but itâs that the girlsâ cover is also entirely misleading. It promises abseiling and danger and is actually a rather nice illustration of a girl in normal clothes doing groovy things, and then it turns out to be about bloody babysitting and guff. Iâd have been livid if Iâd been duped by that as an eight year old.
The real tragedy here is that it has a pretty cool comic book format thatâs totally wasted on poorly-written material. Iâd love to see a Dangerous Book for Boys/Girls illustrated like a graphic novel.
This is the liberal version of the recent attempt to ban The Invisible Man. See kids?
[mod edit: removed ableist slur]
