Ladybird children’s imprint to drop gender-labelling

In the UK, Penguin Random House children’s book imprint Ladybird will no longer publish books labelled ‘for boys’ and ‘for girls’ in response to a campaign against gender-labelling, reports the Bookseller. A spokesperson for Ladybird told the Let Toys be Toys campaign that when titles such as Ladybird Favourite Fairy Tales for Girls and Ladybird Favourite Stories for Boys are reprinted the gender labels will be removed. ‘At Ladybird we certainly don’t want to be seen to be limiting children in any way,’ said the spokesperson, who added that ‘out of literally hundreds of titles currently in print, we actually only have the six titles … with this kind of titling’. ‘As Ladybird is part of the Penguin Random House Children’s division, our commitment to avoiding gendered titles in the trade crosses all our imprints.’ Other publishers who have committed to removing gender-labelling include Usborne, Parragon and Dorling Kindersley.

Category: International news