Whitney Darrow (1909–1999)

This book was one of the books I used for my research paper. It is an early reader book that talks about specific roles for girls and boys. Throughout the book it talks about what girls specifically do, like play with dolls, clean the house, etc. Boys invent things, they are doctors, etc. I gave this story a one out of five stars because girls and boys should be able to do whatever they want. Even though this book was made a long time ago, I wouldn't want children reading this. The illustrations are very plain throughout the book. They look like they were done with mostly black and red crayons or colored pencils. I wouldn't ever use this in a classroom, because I want students to be encouraged to be who they want to be.… (more)

The book I'M GLAD I'M A BOY! I'M GLAD I'M A GIRL! by Whitney Darrow is book made for younger children because there are few words on each page. The message of this book is telling children to be all of the stereotypes that we try to break as adults. Throughout the book the boy is doing all "boyish" things like sports and the girl is doing all "girlish" things like cooking and at the end it comes together where they both want to be together because one is a boy and one is a girl. This book shows all of the stereotypes of boys and girls and I would not want to use this in my class. I would not want to use this in my class because I do not want to promote stereotypes in my future class.… (more)

I'M GLAD I'M A BOY, I'M GLAD I'M A GIRL by Whitney Darrow is a straight up story explaining the gender stereotypes men and women were supposed to follow in the olden days. It starts out saying that boys are doctors while girls are nurses. It also goes on to explain that boys are the ones that build houses while the girls are the ones that clean the houses the boys build. This book was published in the 1970's which explains why the gender stereotypes are the way they are. Today many of these stereotypes are not the norm for many people. The illustrations in this book consist of the hand painted pictures with colors of black, white. and red. The pictures are simple illustrations that show how a person was supposed to do the task. A teacher could use this book in a class to show how times have changed. They could have their students raise their hands when they thought something in the book was wrong. This would create a discussion about gender stereotypes and how they have changed over the years.… (more)