Don't Accept Sexism or Today in Don't Piss Off Twitter:

I really, really didn't think much about yesterday's post about the blatant sexism in Scholastic's Survive Anything books. I opened my committee box from Scholastic, and there they were. I couldn't not look at them, and I couldn't help but notice how it played into gender stereotypes in a shockingly obvious and stupidly offensive way. So I dusted off this blog and wrote a fairly minimalist entry, trusting that in typing out the table of contents the books would speak for themselves. They did.

I didn't expect it to spread through Twitter like WILDFIRE. I figured a few of my friends would find it as obnoxious as I, but I didn't expect the great Ryan North (incidentally, my husband's IDOL, no joke) to pick it up (with a fat cut & paste no less) and run with it all over the place. I spent the day talking to 700 middle school students about books, reading, and the library, so what happened next is really all your story. You spread the issue thousands upon thousands of times on Twitter. You linked to it on Facebook, on Tumblr, and Reddit. It was picked up by BuzzFeed and Jezebel (Jezebel, in a failed example of journalism, didn't credit me, but whatevs).

And Scholastic? They heard you. In a terse post, they announced that no further copies will be made available." Whatever that means. No additional printings would be my guess.

Which puts me in sort of a strange mind. On one hand, VICTORY! We have stood up for our children and refused gender boxes! On the other, there wasn't really anything wrong with most (definitely not all - some of the girl language was downright patronizing) of the content, just that it assigned specific gender roles in a nonsensical out-dated, way. Objections would not have been had if Boys Only! and Girls Only! hadn't appeared on the cover. Make them gender neutral, and it's possible I would have talked these up to the couple thousand students I see this time of year. So, now that these books are no more, my little librarian mind is confused: Did I just instigate some sort of progressive-minded censorship? Regardless, let's hope that Scholastic will keep this in mind the next time they think creating gendered books is spiffy keen.

For some lols, check out the apology North wanted to get from Scholastic.