The Berenstain Bears No Girls Allowed by Stan Berenstain

(If you're a child of the '80s or '90s, read this one for the nostalgia factor. Maybe that's part of the reason why women are still fighting for equal rights in our world: books from previous generations didn't go far enough.

This may have been fine for teaching my generation that girls can do the same things boys can do, but the lesson doesn't really go far enough and the book still promotes rigid gender stereotypes. All of these things together would make me hesitant to give this book to a modern child. And there's some casual racism thrown in there, too, with Sister's victory celebrations (she resorts to 'war whoops' to gloat).

Gender binary roles are heavily pushed, too (baseball, marbles, running, and climbing trees are all considered 'boy' activities, while jumping rope, picking flowers, tea parties, and reading books are considered 'girl' activities). If this story had focused more on the sibling rivalry aspect rather than making it a battle of the sexes, it might seem a little more up to date. The thing that probably rankles these boys so much about Sister winning isn't so much that she's a girl. I think part of the problem I'm having with this is that the boys-versus-girls thing is really overdone. Eventually, the cubs all make up and share. She wants to disallow boys, but Mama gently dissuades her. So she starts her own club with all the girls from the neighbourhood that have been left out. Sister thinks this is unfair, and her parents agree. So Brother and his friends make a secret clubhouse and decree that no girls are allowed. And she's not subtle about it when she wins. As she gets older, she starts to be able to outrun and outplay them. Sister likes to tag along with Brother and his friends. Unfortunately, some of the details are kind of dated, and I think parents could probably find books with more modern, relevant messages. Back in the 1980s, this was probably a very forward-thinking book. Urn:oclc:843001420 Scandate 20100716010522 Scanner may have encountered this book in my childhood (my younger sister had quite a Berenstain Bears collection). OL15829416W Page-progression lr Pages 40 Ppi 400 Related-external-id urn:isbn:075877057X Urn:lcp:berenstainbe1986bere:epub:fefe7735-4c67-4fce-b382-3c7e13ba9d3b Extramarc University of Alberta Libraries Foldoutcount 0 Identifier berenstainbe1986bere Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t2x35hp19 Isbn 0394873319ĩ780394973319 Lccn 85018246 Ocr ABBYY FineReader 8.0 Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.20 Ocr_module_version 0.0.16 Openlibrary_edition Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 21:37:41 Bookplateleaf 0002 Boxid IA120017 Camera Canon EOS 5D Mark II City New York Donor

The Berenstain Bears No Girls Allowed by Stan Berenstain