Gender by the Book: 21st-Century French Children’s Literature

Gender by the Book investigates the gender representations that French children’s literature transmits to readers today. Using an interdisciplinary, mixed methods approach, this book grounds its literary analysis in a sociohistorical examination of three key institutions - libraries, book clubs, and subscription magazines - that circulate reading material to children. It shows how French policies, cultural beliefs, and market forces influence the content of children’s literature, including tensions between State support for unprofitable artistic endeavors and a belief in children’s right to high-quality products on the one hand, and suspicion of activism as anathema to creativity and fear of losing boy readers on the other. In addition, the notion of universalism, which asserts that equality is best achieved when society is blind to differences, thwarts a diverse and equitable array of literary representations. Nevertheless, conditions are favorable for 21st-century French children’s publishers to offer a robust body of richly entertaining egalitarian literature for children.

This title is freely available as open access thanks to generous support from the Fondren Library at Rice University.

Julie Fette is an associate professor of French Studies at Rice University in Houston. She is the author of Exclusions: Practicing Prejudice in French Law and Medicine, 1920-1945 and co-author of the French civilization textbook, Les Français. Fette holds doctorates from New York University and the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. She teaches on modern French society, history, and culture.