sooo... Reading.
Reading is probably my biggest enemy. I am very good at it, yes. But I don't like reading. this is coming from someone who has only 2 book series I enjoyed so much I joined the fandom of the series ( Diary of A Wimpy Kid and The Emigrants, which are 2 extremely diferent book series, The 1st one about a boy starting middle school, and the other being about Swedish Immigrants in Minnesota ) and a few singular books. but I have read various other books that were from "Yeah, This is great but still won't read again" to "This is pure trash" and this is how I feel about the Scholastic book fair.
I am a girl. I think what Scholastic wants to do is include books for everyone, but oh the stereotypes in the middle grade section (5th to 8th grade)
There is usually a section full of "Girl" Books (Diaries, Graphic Novels, Baby sitters club books, Animal stories etc) Yes, a lot of girls like those books, but Not all of them. I am a girl, and I like to read books about Scandinavian History and Culture My friend Jordan is also a girl, and she likes reading about Mythology and World War 1, and that is ok to have interests that don't fit the traditional Gender stereotype (as long as they're appropiate for your age)
Then the boy books. You have stuff like Diary of A Wimpy Kid, Books about Video Games, Books about Horror and Zombies and History books. This maks me very mad, as some of these books (Espiecally the history books) do contain Girl Characters, but are marked as "Boy Books" because Girls can''t be into History and have to care about Celebrities as well. As a History and Genealogy Girl, this makes me super mad. Not only this is bad, but it is borderline offensive. Another thing Ive seen is that most of the books with POC characters are also in the boys section. There are barely no books with POC characters and authors in the girls section
But if you look at the books for younger kids (under the 4th grade) Gender Neutral books excist. There are no sections specifically for Girl books and Boy Books, they're just mixed there. Ive also seen examples that could appeal to both boys and girls (there was a book about a Dinosaur who likes cupcakes, a book about diferent US states , A guide to Disney Pixar characters etc)
So yeah. I am so mad at scholastic rn. If they done a great job doing this to the younger kids, why not the middle schoolers?