20 Gender-Stereotype-Busting Books for Boys

Today’s book post is one I’ve been working on for a while, and it’s very close to my heart – today I’m sharing my Top 20 gender stereotype busting books for boys! Before anyone cries ‘Why just boys?’, yes, there are lots of great stereotype busting books about strong and mighty girls too. But I am mum to two boys, age 4 and 8. My eldest likes to wear his hair long, his favourite colour is pink, and he likes many things stereotypically associated with girls. As you can imagine, he’s had to endure quite a bit of teasing and taunting, and stupid comments, over the years, so I started collecting books to show him and his brother that there are lots of different ways of being a boy. Those are the books I want to share with you today:

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Featured Books:

  1. Pink is for Boys, by Robb Pearlman & Eda Kaban
  2. Pink! by Lynne Rickards & Margaret Chamberlain
  3. The Boy with Pink Hair, by Perez Hilton & Jen Hill
  4. The Day the Crayons Quit, by Drew Daywalt & Oliver Jeffers
  5. Pinky and Rex and the Bully, by James Howe & Melissa Sweet
  6. My Princess Boy, by Cheryl Kilodavis & Suzanne DeSimone
  7. Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress, by Christine Baldacchino & Isabelle Malenfant
  8. Sparkle Boy, by Leslaea Newman & Maria Mola
  9. Frockodile, byJeanne Willis & Stephanie Laberis
  10. William’s Doll, by Charlotte Zolotow & William Pene du Bois
  11. The Big Brother, by Stephanie Dagg & Alan Clarke
  12. The Knitting Gorilla, by Giles Andreae & Janet Cronin
  13. Made by Raffi, by Craig Pomranz & Margaret Chamberlain
  14. I Love My Purse, by Belle Demont & Sonja Wimmer
  15. Dogs Don’t Do Ballet, by Anna Kemp & Sara Ogilvie
  16. Gaston, byKelly DiPucchio & Christian Robinson
  17. Rooster Wore Skinny Jeans, by Jessie Miller & Barbara Bakos
  18. The Knight Who Wouldn’t Fight, by Helen Docherty & Thomas Docherty
  19. Tough Guys (Have Feelings Too), by Keith Negley
  20. Julian is a Mermaid, by Jessica Love

I also wanted to give a shout out to the great anthology ‘Books for Boys Who Dare to be Different’ by Ben Brooks & Quinton Winter:

This great book features 100 men from the past to the present – some famous, some not so well known – who were all a little different in their own way but went on to make the world a better place. Each double page has an illustrated portrait and bio, and Oskar keeps it by his bed to browse in at bed time (he gets an extra ten minutes of reading time after we’ve all had out bedtime story together). It’s for slightly older kids, I’d say 8+ for confident readers to read by themselves, or a but younger if you are reading it out to them. There’s a second volume out too now.

What are your favourite books from this round-up? Do you have any other great gender-stereotype busting books to recommend? Feel free to share in the comments below!

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Comments: 9

  • reply
    24 May 2019

    These are so great. My daughter has a friend and he loves pink and sparkly things, thankfully the other boys at school all know him well and haven’t teased him.

  • reply
    24 May 2019

    These are so brilliant and refreshing. I think boys can easily get teased for having long hair etc, thanks for sharing them.

  • reply

    Jon

    24 May 2019

    Wow! We never had these sort of books when I was at school. It’s great to see them so available!

  • reply

    Va Anne Rome

    24 May 2019

    This sounds like a books that could hook my boys in with just the first page! thanks for the great recommendation

  • reply
    24 May 2019

    Love this – there is much talk about gender stereotype busting books for girls but not much of for the boys so this is a great list!

  • reply
    24 May 2019

    What a great list of books. It’s so important to read a wide range to children.

  • reply
    25 May 2019

    My daughter loved (loves) anything dinosaur – she’s nearly 13

  • reply
    27 May 2019

    I love this book list, I have an older girl and a baby boy, he will share his sisters books and toys, I won’t be buying him ‘boy’ things.

  • reply
    31 May 2019

    Such an ace blog post and going to pick some of these books up as I have two boys and we have a fairly gender neutral home and I know they would love some of these stories

    Laura x

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