boy books and girl books
Little girls have more fully developed verbal skills. So we're told. Studies differ. Some say that the differences are fleeting, some say the source of the differences may be a result of nature or of nurture or of both. The studies continue.
What is fairly certain is that little girls read much more than little boys, more in terms of quantity and more in terms of diversity. It's not unusual to find a girl reading Holes or Maniac Magee, but it is rare to see a boy reading Number the Stars or Absolutely Normal Chaos (unless, of course, the book is assigned reading in class; even then, it wouldn't be surprising to find a copy of Goosebumps hidden beneath the cover of the assigned book).
It's also fully certain that publishers know this. They market some books specifically for girl readers, others for boy readers because they have to make sales.
It is politically incorrect to speak of just about anything designed exclusively for one gender or another, but it's still true. Apply this thought to Toys'R'Us (or any large chain toy store), and try to imagine large numbers of little boys being drawn to the hot pink Barbie aisle (or aisles); it's just not going to happen.
Boy and Girl books pre-date Tom Sawyer and Little Women, but these are two of the most enduring modern children's works that fit this category.
I did not read Little Women as a child. My mother did; my sister did; her daughter did. And mothers, sisters, daughters still read it. Perhaps it gets passed along (like The Wizard of Oz) as one of those nostalgic treasures that one generation has to share with the next. Whatever the reason, the book still sells incredibly well. Go to a bookstore with a fairly large children's literature section, and you're likely to find a dozen different copies (paperback, hardbound, LEATHERbound!) of Little Women, Little Men, and the rest of the series.
Tom Sawyer is still around, but in not such huge demand. Remember, little boys don't read as much as little girls.
And the clue to why not MAY be in the books themselves.
Girl books are about traditional girl things: domestic chores, reading, family, fashion, emotion, romance, marriage. The girls in Little Women find their Christmas gifts (volumes of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress) incredible treats. They relish reading these morality-packed pages, and the attempt to become more like Christian is one of the unifying devices of Alcott's book. Contrast that to Tom Sawyer where Tom wins the Bible-reading prize not by actually reading the Bible (which would be unthinkable for Tom), but by wheeling and dealing for the little slips given out to the other kids who actually did read.
Boy books are about traditional boy things: adventures, independence, self-reliance, rebelliousness, physical activity--things outside the home.
This may smack of male conspiracy to some; to others it may seem wholly appropriate. Whatever your take on the rightness or wrongness of it, the earliest Boy books reinforced traditional male roles while Girl books reinforced traditional female roles.
...though not completely. Tom Sawyer comes from a tradition of "bad boy" (which is supposed to be redundant) books. But Tom is not truly "bad"; he's what used to be called "high spirited." Aunt Polly wrings her hands over his playing hookey, wails over his roughhouse ways, but Tom clearly has a conscience. He's even rather conventional in his thinking. At the end of the book he helps (try) to bring Huck Finn into mainstream society, and although he forms a gang, it's going to be a "respectable gang." His playing pirate and getting into fights and treating Becky Thatcher like a trophy rather than a human being, and his prank to snatch the wig at the public meeting are actually encouraged by the otherwise bored townspeople (who reward Tom with sheepish "boys will be boys" grins). Even Aunt Polly is flummoxed when Tom seems to have become "good" all of a sudden. Sure that he's dreadfully ill she doses him with castor oil and is relieved when some of his spunk returns. Nonetheless, even though Tom is not a "bad boy," he does represent the stereotypical role of males; he celebrates a male's independence, his cunning, his ability to make his own way in the world outside the home.
And if Little Women is filled with things and activities and values conventionally associated with girls--clothes and cooking, caring for the sick, going to school and coming home to read or sew in the parlor, learning self-control and quietude--there is Jo. Jo is the tom-boy (note the "tom") who needs to be reigned in, to learn to become more ladylike; she is also the character who most reflects Alcott's frustration at women being excluded from so many things (career, independence, ability to act as she pleases) in the real world. Although the book genuinely does showcase the family as the basic unit of support and love, Jo sees the inevitability of marriage bitterly; it is, after all, going to break up a part of the family in the end. She would rather have a career as a writer. The book is not anti-marriage, but it is against marriage as the only path open to a woman. For all that even Alcott acknowledged that her book, with its warmth and family loyalty, reinforced many of the stereotypes rather than encouraged young women to protest their traditional role.
But that was a long time ago.
Or was it?
There still are Boy and Girl books, whole series directed at either boys or girls. From my childhood there were the Nancy Drew books, which my sister read, and the Hardy Boys books, which I read. Now there are The Babysitter's Club books, The American Girl series, and several other racks of books (check the local bookstore again) directed at young girl readers. And although the themes have been updated to reflect more modern social reality, there are still some traditional stereotypes woven throughout the books. And then there are the R.L. Stine books for boys.
"But WAIT!" you protest; "books like Goosebumps are not just Boy books; they're read by girls too!"
Exactly :)