Bookstart
Opinium conducted a survey with over 1,000 people on behalf of Bookturst and found that both parents and children fall into a traditional gender divide when they choose which fairy tales and characters they prefer. 32% of Mums chose Cinderella as their favourite fairy tale whereas 30% of Dads chose Jack and the Beanstalk. 34% of daughters named Cinderella and 27% of those parents with sons also chose Jack and the Beanstalk.
Following these results it was unsurprising that girls where most likely to choose female characters, as four out of five of the top choices were female. Boys were most likely to choose villains as their favourites, voting for the Troll from Three Billy Goats Gruff, the Big Bad Wolf from the Three Little Pigs and the wolf from Red Riding Hood all raining in their top tem choices. The Ugly Stepsisters were the least popular overall.
The survey found that 3 in 10 parents elected not to read their children fairy tales at bed time and when asked for the reason, 51% revealed that their child was too old, 23% said their child was too young and 17% said that their children would rather read something else due to a dislike of fairy tales. Of those who said that their children did not like fairy tales they were more often than not referring to a son rather than a daughter. Children aged seven and older were the ones who were deemed to old by their parents to read fairy tales.