Henrika Almström is a librarian and runs the account @barnboksanalyser on Instagram. When we saw her analysis of food in children's books in 2024, and the relationship between vegan and non-vegan, we became curious and asked if she would tell us more about her work analyzing children's books. It became an exciting conversation about pitfalls, the role of the illustrator and what it would mean if children's books did not contain the pronouns she and he.

How did you start analyzing children's books?

- My interest in children and gender was sparked when I studied the History of Ideas and read about feminism. I also studied Gender Studies and Pedagogy with a focus on gender. When I later trained as a librarian, I started looking at how gender is described in children's books. In 2020, I wanted to get a comprehensive picture of he and she (and her) in books for children aged 6-12 and read most of the publications that year. Based on the results I got then, I am now conducting a study of books published in 2024, to see if the results will be similar.

What is the most fun and difficult thing about analyzing books?

– The most fun thing about analyzing books is seeing patterns emerge that wouldn't be visible otherwise, and getting to read books that I might not have otherwise read. The hardest thing is probably finding the time, and perhaps the realization that everything I do is dependent on my own interpretation. An objective analysis is probably next to impossible.

What are the most common traps writers make?

– I feel that there is a gender awareness among authors in many areas, perhaps because there has been a societal debate around these. For example, about he and emotions, and about she and courage and adventure. At the same time, there are areas where old traditional beliefs still live on. For example, there are many more shes than hes in children's books who offer food and drink. It is also more common for him to be the one explaining things to others. Technical knowledge and interest, as well as technical equipment, are also things that are often linked to hes in children's books. At the same time, it is mainly she who is sensitive to supernatural phenomena. She is also described to a greater extent as impulsive and reckless. Something that is very often described in children's books is her hair, but less often his.

I also feel that there are traces of misogyny in children's books, just as there are in society at large. There is a tendency to describe certain women as, for example, angry, dangerous, evil, i.e. in the tradition of the wicked witch. Perhaps the authors' aim is to be norm-breaking when they portray evil characters, but they then instead fall into another gender stereotype, created by the hierarchical system that is gender categorization.

What are the most common traps for illustrators?

– I think the illustrator's dilemma is that they have to show who is what. Where the author can write he and she, respectively, and then is relatively free to shape their characters in a variety of ways, the illustrator only works with our signs of gender in the form of clothes, hairstyles and adornments. These are so important in our society for us to be able to read each other, so the illustrator may not have much choice, other than to be a gender stereotype.

Sometimes the illustrator re-creates nature to make the gender even more obvious, like when he has no eyelashes at all, but she does.

During the post on the analysis of the book Report from a Superhero, you have an objection to the expression "a completely ordinary guy". Would you like to tell us more?

– It is interesting to think about what the word boy or girl stands for in the general consciousness. We probably don't just think about reproductive organs. So if a publisher or author writes that a book is about "a completely ordinary guy", what then appears in the reader's consciousness? Is it gender stereotypes? It is interesting to compare it with if it had instead stated that the character was "a completely ordinary child". What image would we have then?

Another thing I think of is when characters in books see other people and "know" that they are a certain gender. In our everyday lives we do this all the time, but in books it is the author who is the all-knowing, so if it says "Caro saw a man" then the author knows if it was a man. In reality we assume other people's gender, but we can never be completely sure that we are interpreting correctly.

It sometimes happens in children's books that things get misinterpreted and the main characters discover that a person is of a different gender than they first thought. But in reality, we never really know for sure, and quite often we don't get to know either. But in children's books, the characters are sure of their interpretations, and because the author is the one who knows, they are almost never wrong.

What have you learned/become sharper at taking notes by analyzing so many books?

– The reason I chose to analyze all chapter books for a certain age range during a certain year was because I don't believe that the patterns emerge with a smaller selection of books. That's exactly what I've learned, to see patterns that aren't otherwise visible.

What is your best tip for breaking the norm in books without the reader noticing?

I would say that the "smartest" way to be unconventional is to not use the pronouns she and he. That way, the characters automatically become more "round". There is no template for the reader, nothing common or unusual to relate to.

When the discussion around the pronoun hen started in 2012, I thought it would be the perfect way in children's books to avoid gender stereotyping. But now the term hen has come to stand more for a personality type, a kind.

By avoiding pronouns, mixing gender symbols in the illustrations, and using newly created proper nouns, I believe it can be made easier for the reader not to think in terms of two types and what is perceived as common and unusual for these types.

Do you have any tips for us at OLIKA? Is there anything we are missing? Something we should try to include in our release?

I think that children's books and gender look like a funnel. In books for the very youngest, it is the least "dangerous" or provocative to violate gender norms, and that is also where we find most examples of non-gendered people, or for example, a man in a dress.

This then gradually decreases in books for older children. The challenge, I think, is to include the norm-breaking in books for, for example, 9-12 year olds. That is, without gender becoming the actual theme of the book (such as there being books where the main character is trans or homosexual or non-binary).