Scholastic to stop gender-labelling its books

In the UK, Scholastic has stopped gender-labelling its books after receiving a complaint from a young reader, reports the Guardian. In response to a petition from an eight-year-old reader arguing that ‘no books should be “for girls” or “for boys”’, Scholastic said it will no longer publish anything new that is pitched at girls or boys in the title, with any backlist titles to be reissued with new covers on reprint. The publisher has also removed gendered questions from its online recommendation tool ‘book wizard’. The petition, which had more than 80 signatures, was sent with the support of campaign group Let Books Be Books. ‘At Scholastic, we appreciate that every child is different and has the right to choose the books that are right for them; we aim to have something on our list for every child,’ said the publisher in a statement.

Category: International news