On this site you should find reviews of children's literature, focusing on issues of stereotyping and messages about society. These reviews can be added and edited by anyone. Their purpose is to make it easier for parents to buy some books which contradict and undermine the stereotypes and messages they find their children being subjected to. We hope to concentrate on books which are positive in this way, but which DO NOT have OVERT/obvious messages like 'difference is ok' or 'women can be leaders too' (we're just interested in good stories in which these things are apparent!).
The Betterstories site is in development: It is ready for use but has little content so far.
What you will find here are some initial book reviews, and some other pages about ideas, other resources, jobs to do, and about this site itself.
Betterstores is directed at people who already view stereotypes in children's books as a problem, and who would like to do something about it. There are interesting arguments to be had about how much of a problem it is, but this isn't the place to have them. We don't aim to convince anyone with this site, nor are we likely to respond favourably to people wanting to convince us that there isn't a problem.
Text size:
If you find the text size on the site too small or too large, try using 'ctrl' and the plus/minus keys (or the apple/command key and plus/minus on a Mac).
For other information about text size and accessibility see the accessibility page.
News
1 Sept 09
This site hasn't grown up yet - I'm still looking for people prepared to put a few minutes into adding their own reviews and telling others about it. Having put lots of work in to develop it I've had to take a break while I work on other things (such as earning a living). The site isn't going out of date though - every so often I add a new link or book to it. Please consider doing the same.
26 Feb 08 - New site
This is an extremely new site (22 Feb 08). I'm really pleased you found your way here. Please offer help if you can - it's a wiki (a little bit like 'Wikipedia') which means that anyone can edit the main pages, and many other pages can be edited by members. I've tried to set the whole thing up to make it as useful and easy to use as possible, but if you think improvements can be made then join and help me make them. The main content of the site can be seen by clicking two of the links in the menu (at the top left): 'List all book pages' and 'List other site pages'. There is a good deal of potential to use this site in interesting ways - beyond simply reviewing books. If you have ideas why not write a bit about them and get other people involved?
