For years literature has been seen as a gendered medium and reading has been viewed as a gendered practice (Bleich, 1986; Cherland, 1994; Flynn, 1983; Holland, 1977; Linkin, 1993; Millard, 1997). Much of the research on gender and literature preference is more than ten years old, yet book and media marketing relies heavily on gender stereotypes based on the findings of those studies. Teachers and librarians still say, “I don’t know if I would use that book because it would only appeal to girls” or “boys won’t read a book with a female protagonist.” This demonstrates the continuing pertinence of the question of whether literacy practices are gendered, and what that might look like today.

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