Tender Boys
Males in Non-Traditional Roles
Picturebooks |
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| Author | Title |
| Banks, Kate | Mama's coming home. (2003) |
| Papa, two boys and a baby straighten up the house and prepare dinner as Mama crosses the bustling city, eager to be home from work. | |
| Bergman, Mara | Musical beds. (2002) |
| A tired dad deals with scary noises and strange shadows, and puts thirsty children to bed at night before Mom comes home from work. | |
| Blegvad, Lenore | Anna Banana and me. (1985) |
| An anxious little boy is inspired by his female playmate's fearlessness to face his own fears. | |
| Boxall, Ed | Francis the scaredy cat. (2002) |
| Although Francis the cat is afraid of the whispery hissing monster he hears in the tree outside, he faces his fear when he thinks the monster may have captured his good friend Ben. | |
| Bradman, Tony | Daddy's lullaby. (2002) |
| A father takes his baby on a midnight stroll through the house, trying to get the baby to sleep. | |
| Byars, Betsy Cromer | Go and hush the baby. (1971) |
| Will helps his mother by entertaining his crying little brother with a song, a boat race, a magic trick and a story. | |
| Cameron, Ann | The stories Julian tells. (1981) |
| Seven-year-old Julian and his younger brother Huey cook and garden and make kites with their father. | |
| Carlson, Nancy L. | Louanne Pig in Making the Team. (1985) |
| Arnie doesn't make the football team, but he makes a great cheerleader! | |
| Clifton, Lucille | Everett Anderson's Goodbye. (1983) |
| Everett Anderson has a difficult time coming to terms with his grief after his father dies. | |
| De Paola, Tomie | Oliver Button is a sissy. (1979) |
| His classmates' taunts don't stop Oliver Button from doing what he likes best - dance! | |
| Ernst, Lisa Campbell | Sam Johnson and the Blue Ribbon Quilt. (1983) |
| In early 1900s rural America, Sam is met with scorn and ridicule when he asks if he could join the Rosedale Women's Quilting Club. So he and the other men form their own quilting club, and enter their quilt in the county fair quilt contest. Who will win the first prize in that contest -- the Rosedale Women's Quilting Club or the Rosedale Men's Quilting Club? | |
| Fierstein, Harvey | The sissy duckling. (2002) |
| Elmer the duck is teased because he is different, but he proves himself by not only surviving the winter, but also by saving his Papa. | |
| Fox, Mem | Tough Boris. (1994) |
| Although he is a very tough pirate, fearless, mean and greedy too, Boris von der Borch cries when his beloved parrot dies. | |
| Fox, Mem | Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge. (1984) |
| A small boy tries to discover the meaning of "memory" so he can restore that of an elderly friend. | |
| Graham, Bob | Crusher is coming. (1987) |
| Crusher, the best football player in school, comes over to Pete's house for a play date but things don't workout the way Pete hoped, thanks to Crusher's enchantment with Pete's baby sister Claire. | |
| Graham, Bob | Max. (2000) |
| Max, the young son of superheroes, is a late bloomer when it comes to flying, until he is inspired by the plight of a falling baby bird. | |
| Hershenhorn, Esther | Chicken soup by heart. (2002) |
| When Rudie's sitter gets the flu, he uses her own recipe to make her a batch of special chicken soup, including the secret ingredient of stories from the heart. | |
| Hines, Anna Grossnickle | Daddy makes the best spaghetti. (1986) |
| Corey's father picks her up from day-care, cooks dinner before mom comes home from work and gives her a bath, doing many funny things along the way! | |
| Henkes, Kevin | Owen. (1993) |
| Owen does not want to give up his beloved blanket before he starts school, so his parents come up with a very creative solution that makes everyone happy! | |
| Howe, James | Pinky and Rex. (1990) |
| Pinky loves the colour pink and he has many pink stuffed animals, including a pink pig with a curly tail called Pretzel, to whom he talks every day. (Series) | |
| Isadora, Rachel | Max. (1976) |
Max finds a new way to warm up for his Saturday baseball game--his sister's ballet class! |
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| James, Simon | Leon and Bob. (1997) |
| Leon and his imaginary friend Bob do everything together until a new boy moves in next door. | |
| Judes, Marie-Odile | Max, the stubborn little wolf. (2001) |
| Papa Wolf expects his son Max to be a hunter, like other wolves, but Max wants to be a florist. | |
| McMullan, Kate | Papa's song. (2000) |
| After Grandma, Grandpa, and Mama Bear unsuccessfully try to sing Baby Bear to sleep, Papa finds just the right song. | |
| Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds | King of the playground. (1991) |
| Kevin's dad helps him deal with a bossy contemporary at the playground by using wile, not force. | |
| Numeroff, Laura Joffe | What mommies do best / What daddies do best. (1998) |
| Mothers and fathers participating in everyday activities show their love for their children in very similar ways. | |
| Ormerod, Jan | Dad's back. (1985) |
| Dad comes home and plays with baby. | |
| Parr, Todd | The Daddy Book. (2002) |
| Represents a variety of fathers, with lots of hair and little hair, making cookies and buying doughnuts, camping out and taking naps, and hugging and kissing their children. | |
| Pringle, Laurence P | Octopus hug. (1993) |
| When Mom goes out for the evening, Dad and the kids invent games filled with fun and laughter. | |
| Shea, Pegi Deitz | New moon. (1996) |
| Vinnie's big brother always shows her the moon at night, and one cold day, he runs home with a big surprise....... | |
| Spinelli, Eileen | Boy, can he dance! (1993) |
| His father wants him to follow the family tradition and become a chef, but Tony would much rather dance. | |
| Wells, Rosemary | Benjamin and Tulip. (1973) |
| Benjamin is at a loss in handling Tulip's constant bullying, until he "confronts" her with a watermelon! | |
| Wells, Rosemary | Edward in deep water. (1995) / Edward's overwhelming overnight. (1995) |
| Adventures of Edward the Unready, who cannot sleep overnight at a friend's, and does not like to be in the swimming pool without his water wings. | |
| Wells, Rosemary | Shy Charles. (1988) |
| Charles is so shy he doesn't talk to anyone at ballet class or football practice, but he calls the emergency service when his sitter falls down the stairs, and is a hero. | |
| Winthrop Elizabeth | Tough Eddie. (1985) |
| Although Eddie appears to be a tough kid, he also plays with a dollhouse, a secret he feels he cannot reveal even to his closest friends. | |
| Wishinsky, Frieda | Oonga boonga. (1998) |
| Big brother Daniel seems to have just the right touch when it comes to making Baby Louise stop crying. | |
| Zolotow, Charlotte | William's doll. (1972) |
| William's father gives him a basketball and a train but only his grandma understands why he needs a doll. | |
Readers |
|
| Author | Title |
| Baker, Barbara | One Saturday morning. (1994) / One Saturday afternoon. (1999) |
| Papa Bear does weekend activities with Mama Bear and the kids, including going to the park, baking bread and cooking vegetable stew, and enjoying a fun relaxing day with the family. | |
| Carrick, Malcolm | Mr. Tod's trap. (1980) |
| After all Mr. Tod's tricks to catch rabbits fail, he looks after the little fox cubs and Mrs. Tod successfully catches rabbits for the family's supper. | |
| Thomas, Shelley Moore | Good night, good knight. (2000) |
| A Good Knight helps three little dragons who are having trouble getting to sleep. (Series) | |
Fiction |
|
| Author | Title |
| Dick King-Smith | Lady Daisy. (1993) |
| Nine-year-old Ned faces a lot of teasing when he decides to keep a Victorian doll that speaks only to him. | |
| Farrell, Mame | Bradley and the billboard. (1998) |
| When thirteen-year-old Brad, a baseball hero, gets a job as a fashion model, he must come to terms with his ideas of what it is to be a real guy. | |
| Fine, Anne | Alias Madame Doubtfire. (1988) |
| A divorced father comes back into the lives of his children by disguising himself as their Scottish nanny. Also in video as "Mrs. Doubtfire". | |
| Fitzhugh, Louise | Nobody's family is going to change. (1974) |
| Through a series of family disagreements over her seven-year-old brother's efforts to become a dancer and her own determination to be a lawyer, eleven-year-old Emma realizes that it is up to children to take the initiative since parents rarely change. | |
| Fitzhugh, Louise | Sport. (1979) |
| Eleven-year-old Sport has been living happily with his absent-minded father, managing their finances and cooking their meals, when his ruthless and wealthy mother suddenly wants his custody. | |
| Henkes, Kevin | Sun and Spoon. (1997) |
| After the death of his grandmother, Spoon misses her terribly but is unable to show it; so he tries to find the perfect artifact to preserve his memory of her. | |
| Lichtman, Wendy | The boy who wanted a baby. (1982) |
| As twelve-year-old Dan experiences increasing sexual awareness, he wishes he could give birth to a baby like his mother's friend Rosie. | |
| Paterson, Katherine | Bridge to Terabithia. (1977) |
| The imagination and life of a ten-year-old boy in rural Virginia expands when he becomes friends with a newcomer who subsequently meets an untimely death trying to reach their hideaway, Terabithia, during a storm. | |
| Simon, Marcia L | A special gift. (1978) |
| A young boy tries to cope with the difficulties of developing his skills as a dancer and at the same time maintain his identity as an athlete. | |
| Walter, Mildred Pitts | Justin and the best biscuits in the world. (1986) |
| His beloved grandfather helps ten-year-old Justin realize that cleaning and keeping house are not only women's work. | |
YT Fiction |
|
| Author | Title |
| Klein, N | The Cheerleader. (1985) |
| Eighth-grader Evan and his friend Karim cause quite a stir when they form a cheerleading squad for the girl's softball team. | |
| Fox, Paula | One-eyed cat : a novel. (1984) |
| An eleven-year-old shoots a stray cat with his new air rifle, subsequently suffers from guilt, and eventually assumes responsibility for it. | |
| Ure, Jean | What if they saw me now? (1982) |
| Sixteen year old Jamie is forced to replace an injured dance student in the big recital at his sister's dance school and his biggest fear in this lively mixture of sport, dance, humor and romance is --- what if his friends find out? | |
| Woodson, Jacqueline | From the notebooks of Melanin Sun. (1995) |
| Fourteen-year-old Melanin Sun, shy, quiet and worried about the world's endangered animals, finds his whole life turned upside down when his mother reveals she has fallen in love with another woman. | |
Videos (VHS) |
||
| Call Number | Title | |
| VHS 792.8 B212 | Ballet for boys : some ideas for teaching boys and young men.(1990) | |
| Basic movements of ballet are explained and illustrated in a series of exercises. | ||
| VHS 791.43 M8793 | Mrs. Doubtfire. (1996) | |
| A divorced father comes back into the lives of his children by disguising himself as their Scottish nanny. (Also in DESC form for viewers with low vision.) | ||
Want to get your hands on one of these books? Check the Berkeley Public Library catalog to see where you can get a copy!