Pink is for girls

[girlyswot]

So, I like pink. You may have noticed. I always have, though for a while I pretended I didn't because it wasn't cool.

Anyway, despite my predilection for the colour, I do not believe that absolutely everything must always be produced in pink. Least of all, books. So although I very much approved of most of Jacqueline Wilson's choices of top children's books, I was somewhat shocked by the amount of pink and sparkly.

My editions of her choices are:

Ballet Shoes: paperback, sort of beige, I think
A Little Princess: paperback, nasty mustard yellow and black
Little Women: hardback, red
The Railway Children: paperback, orange with photo on the front
The Family from One End Street: salmon pink (this one looks quite similar to the current edition)
What Katy Did: hardback, red
Mary Poppins: hardback, green

Many of these were passed down from my mother. None were chosen by me in a bookshop, as far as I remember. All were (and still are) very much loved. I recently lent my copy of Mary Poppins to a friend who is seven and just starting to enjoy reading 'proper' books. She didn't seem to mind that it wasn't pink either. Because, after all, it's what's inside that counts.

Comments

[callmemadam.livejournal.com]

I don't care for the pink-and-sparkly-for-girls idea either but...
as you point out The Family From One End Street had a pink cover very early on. So did Ballet Shoes. I have a hardback with a green dustwrapper. The first Puffin edition was also green but the copy I have from the 1950s is definitely pink. I also have a Streatfeild book called The Years of Grace, a sort of 'growing up' anthology for girls, which has a pink dustwrapper. So there's nothing new about it.
I have that very same edition of A Little Princess!