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Gender and the Newberys
Aug. 31st, 2013 09:02 amMore Newbery statistics! This time, I’ve broken down the books by gender of author and gender of protagonist.
Medal winners written by men: 31
Medal winners written by women: 61
(Some authors won multiple medals. As this would be a pain to count, I counted by book rather than author.)
Someone infinitely more dedicated than I am has crunched the Newbery numbers - not only for winners, but for nominees! - decade by decade for author gender: Gender Statistics and the Newberys. Brief summary: in the 1920s, all the winning books were written by men; in the 1930s, all winning books were written by women (possibly the committee felt a bit guilty about the twenties numbers?), and after that it settles into a pattern women consistently win a little more than twice as often.
I don’t know how this tracks on publishing industry statistics as a whole - if there are, in fact, twice as many female children’s book authors as male.
Male Protagonist: 49
Female Protagonist: 27
(Well, those are kind of appalling numbers.)
Co-protagonists/Multiple protagonists: 8 (I counted Ginger Pye, The Wheel on the School, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - sidenote, I love that book - Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, The Westing Game, The View from Saturday, Criss Cross, and Moon Over Manifest. This is rather subjective, so other people might have a different count.)
No protagonist (the book is poetry or folktales or general nonfiction or what-have-you, although probably The Story of Man ought to count as a male protagonist): 6
Medal winners written by men: 31
Medal winners written by women: 61
(Some authors won multiple medals. As this would be a pain to count, I counted by book rather than author.)
Someone infinitely more dedicated than I am has crunched the Newbery numbers - not only for winners, but for nominees! - decade by decade for author gender: Gender Statistics and the Newberys. Brief summary: in the 1920s, all the winning books were written by men; in the 1930s, all winning books were written by women (possibly the committee felt a bit guilty about the twenties numbers?), and after that it settles into a pattern women consistently win a little more than twice as often.
I don’t know how this tracks on publishing industry statistics as a whole - if there are, in fact, twice as many female children’s book authors as male.
Male Protagonist: 49
Female Protagonist: 27
(Well, those are kind of appalling numbers.)
Co-protagonists/Multiple protagonists: 8 (I counted Ginger Pye, The Wheel on the School, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - sidenote, I love that book - Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, The Westing Game, The View from Saturday, Criss Cross, and Moon Over Manifest. This is rather subjective, so other people might have a different count.)
No protagonist (the book is poetry or folktales or general nonfiction or what-have-you, although probably The Story of Man ought to count as a male protagonist): 6
