the banning of little house

A detailed Summary of the banning of little house

I have thought about many different ways to organize this paper and have come to the conclusion that the best way to approach the topic is on a book-by-book basis. My perceptions of the gender biases in these books vary greatly and I did not want to begin altering my views on each so that they would fit into certain contrived connections. What interests me most in these stories is how the authors utilize certain character?s within their given environment. Their instincts and reactions are a wonderful window into how the authors perceive these ?people? would interact with their surroundings and often are either rewarded or punished by the author through consequences in the plot for their responses. Through this means we can see how the authors expect their characters to behave in relation to their post in the world. We must be very careful as readers to judge these biases based only on evidence within the text and not invent them from our own psyche due to the individual world we know.

In Louis Sachar?s award winning book Holes, we see gender biases in many characters. The first and most obvious bias in this book can be found in the way Sachar

Walk Two Moons, by Sharon Creech is a book that I believe presents a very well rounded and complete character in Sal. She is a warm and intelligent girl and Creech does not encumber her character with the pitfalls of any evident stereotypes as far as I can see. She interacts with her environment in a logical and intelligent way, and at times, such as when her mother lost her baby, demonstrates amazing strength. It appears that Sal?s strength is derived from her family, which is a very endearing feature. This is probably why Creech employed this characteristic, in order to make Sal someone we would want to know and care for. It is important in this book for Sal to be someone the reader can relate to because she is not only a central character but also a storyteller. We must trust and care for her in order to feel the emotions Creech is trying to evoke.

· Ernst, Shirley B. ?Gender Issues in Books for Children and Young Adults.? Battling Dragons. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1995.

· Creech, Sharon. Walk Two Moons. New York: Harper Trophy, 1994.

Bloor further stereotypes the Fisher family, but for a very different reason than the other authors I have discussed. He is attempting to satirize our stereotypes of the nuclear family through the over-the-top nature of this family. This is an approach that I have not encountered and found most enjoyable. Bloor has a tendency to write many of the family interactions in a rather tongue-in-cheek tone, which adds humor to the story and allows us as readers to laugh at the ridiculousness of our own preconceived notions about what a family ?should? be. By showing us the augmented version of our stereotypes Bloor hopes to show us how silly they truly are.

· Sachar, Louis. Holes. New York: Frances Foster Books, 1998.

Van strikes me much the same way the Warden does in Holes. Although he is presented in a slightly less fantastic light, one cannot help but see him as the embodiment of evil and destruction within Coman?s world. This not only demonstrates a stereotype of men as violent, but it also is a necessity to the book because it does not ever actually detail the violence occurring in the book other than the opening. By making Van the animal that he is, we as readers have an easier time believing he is capable of the horrors inherent within this book. He takes on almost a Neanderthal-ic feel as the book progresses and the lives of everyone involved become more complicated. I do not mean to suggest that power and masculinity always must go together, but Van most certainly is shown to us as the stereotypical dominant male from the start. Using his brawn to solve problems rather than his brain, Van is our worst nightmare of what a man is capable of becoming: a thoughtless, guiltless tornado of destruction. Coman uses these biases present in our minds to amplify her character and thereby increase the power of her story.

In What Jamie Saw, by Carolyn Coman, gender bias shows itself in a new way. In this book masculinity and evil seem to go hand in hand. There is the character of Van, who is pretty much the same abusive man from every after school special and info-mercial we see during primetime, doing terrible things to a defenseless family. Then there is Jamie, who by my estimation is one of the meekest male characters I have encountered in a children?s book. Finally we

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Approximate Word count = 2272
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English