Like a storybook story
According to the "Which storybook character are you?" quiz, I'm either Harry Potter or The Little Prince, depending on whether I'm more curious or more thoughtful. Who knew?
. . . All seven of the possible results are male. Sadly, it took me a minute to think of some universally-beloved kids'-book characters who are female, but once I checked a booklist I saw that there are lots of them. Dorothy, perhaps Frances (as in Bread and Jam for Frances), Wendy and Tinkerbell, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Jo, Alice, Lucy and Susan, various fairytale heroines, Heidi, Pippi Longstocking, Eloise, Charlotte, Mary Poppins, Nancy Drew, et alia. Still, it does seem like the majority of the kids'-book characters at that level of universal fame are male. (Some on the above list have corresponding male characters, and some are in books that are specifically aimed at girls, whereas I think more of the books that kids of all genders are likely to love feature predominantly male characters.)
But maybe I'm looking at a biased sample. Dunno.
All of this does remind me, on a tangent, to mention that there's a new movie of Natalie Babbitt's lovely kids' book Tuck Everlasting due out this fall. I'm not sure the book can be made into a good movie, and I have no idea what to expect, but I'd like to be cautiously optimistic. William Hurt, Ben Kingsley, and Sissy Spacek get top billing. I don't know much about the director or the writers.