Laurel Snyder Is An Old-Fashioned Girl

Laurel Snyder made an appearance on Beatrice earlier this year, when her first book of poems came out. Since then, she’s published two books for children, Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains and Inside the Slidy Diner—and, as this essay reveals, learned some interesting things about her writing in the process.

When I finished writing my first kids’ book, a friend asked to read it. Overall, her comments were positive, and I was pleased. But then she asked me if there wasn’t a way to make the book less sexist. I was surprised at this. It had never occurred to me that the adventures of a defiant little milkmaid would be considered anti-feminist.

But my friend said, “You keep calling Lucy a girl and Wynston a boy. Why do you have to lock them into rigid boxes like that? It’s so conventional.”

I considered this ridiculous, over-the-top feminism. Boys are boys and girls are girls; I ignored her.

But then, when I was revising my second book, my editor had the same kind of comments. “Why does the dad work and the mom stay home?” she asked me. “What is this, 1950?”

And the problem is that yeah, it kind of is—

Because a lot of classic children’s books are set in a “midcentury American” mode. And I write from within that tradition. Those are the books I LOVE! So even if I give my girls attitude, I’m placing them in a universe that replicates what I hope we’re changing in our world.

It’s tricky.

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2 September 2008 | guest authors |