Frustrating because it reinforced what so many of us know in our guts but (until you're as successful as Hale and therefore able to collect a bit of your own data) can't necessarily "prove" :
That books by women, and books with female protagonists, are exclusively billed as being for girls, so much so that many boys quickly learn to be too ashamed to even consider them.
Even author visits to a school--something I'd think of as a one-perspective version of career day--are segregated; Hale talks about the several times she's found herself speaking to a conspicuously female crowd, though male authors had addressed the entire school.
There's a lot of talk in the kid's lit world about boy readers--how we lose them, often, and how we need to fold them in.
But clearly we're not expecting parents, and educators, and ourselves to give them "girl" books as part of that effort. We're not taking "girl" books and telling boys "there are good reasons to like this."
It should go without saying, but clearly it isn't being said enough: reinforcing the idea that stories about more than half the population are somehow not worthy of male attention makes it very, VERY hard to argue that female people are worthy of the same level of thought and respect as male people.
Teaching boys and girls both that female stories are specific but male stories are universal is a gut-punch to really valuing those groups of stories, and of people, equally. We always try to bill reading as a way to open your mind and see new worlds and develop empathy, and yet we're not asking boys--are in fact making it shameful and difficult for them--to open their mind to girlhood.
This isn't just a problem with "boy" books and "girl" books--it's a problem for all kinds of sub-categories. Books that feature diverse characters, or LGBT characters, or disabled characters, or, or, or, shouldn't exist SOLELY to make those groups feel like literature finds value in their experiences. Those books should also be something we push to every other kid, kids who don't fit those specific boxes, so that they realize this is an experience that is as valid as their own. You can't normalize anything by keeping it "other."
Sigh.
I'd cry about it, but that would be such a GIRL thing to do.
