Pink, Blue and You! Questions for Kids About Stereotypes

Pink, Blue and You! Questions for Kids About Stereotypes by Elise Gravel and Mykaell Blais is a handy guide full of open ended questions to help children navigate gender and the stereotypes around gender.

In this non fiction picture book, readers are asked a series of questions to get their brains thinking about gender. Right from the get go, we are asked questions like:

“Are some things for girls?” “Are some for boys?” “Are some for everyone?” I love how the questions really engage the readers to think critically about the things we may think about as being for girls and/or boys and why that is AND who decides these things. When these decisions are made, how does that make people feel?

There is a great section teaching young readers about the different between ones sex and ones gender identity and how these things aren’t always the same. This book validates all ways of thinking of ones gender identity and gives readers the appropriate pronouns to use in each case. There is also a history lesson about the ways in which women and men have been historically kept out of certain roles and professions just because of their gender. Again they ask the question to the reader: “Do you think these laws and rules are fair?”

I love that this book leaves things open for a safe and honest discussion. Young readers have a very keen sense of justice and the way that Elise Gravel and Mykaell Blais have worded the information and the questions points out the obvious discrimination and puts it back on us to really think about. They have also done this work by sprinkling in humour to make readers feel comfortable and open to sharing.

In the end the story is a celebration of being ourselves, however we choose.