By Lee Wind
I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell Do I Read?
September 6th, 2019
Las Niñas Pueden Ser Reyes by Jacinta Bunnell, translated into Spanish by Fernanda Siles
This new Spanish translation of Jacinta Bunnell’s feminist coloring book Girls Are Not Chicks features 32 pages of girl power fun, translated by Nicaraguan educator, Fernanda Siles. Every day we hear on the news stories of Latinx folks here in the U.S. and those south of the U.S. border being recipients of brutal hostility and violence. At the same time, we see these same communities courageously risking everything so that they and their children can thrive. We see young Latinx people organize despite this repression, many of them young girls. I am so inspired by their mobilization. I offer this book as a token of love and appreciation that celebrates these brave and powerful activists, educators and communities of care. The title in English of this book is Girls Can Be Kings.
Measures 8 x 11 inches. Black & white line drawings, fun to color with colored pencils or crayons. This is the coloring book you should have had when you were a kid. Color the Rapunzel for a new society. She now has power tools, a roll of duct tape, and a bus pass! Paint outside the lines with Miss Muffet as she tells that spider off and considers a career as an arachnologist!
Girls are thinkers, creators, fighters, healers, superheroes, and kings.
¡Veintisiete páginas de diversión feminista! Este es un libro para colorear para cualquier edad y nunca puede uno ser demasiado grande. Las niñas pueden ser reyes ofrece una manera alegre y subversiva de examinar como los estereotipos de género que están en todos aspectos de nuestras vidas. Este libro ayuda a deconstruir la homogeneidad de la expresión de género en los medios infantiles, presentando imágenes más diversificadas que refuerzan los roles de género positivos para niñas.
Niñas son pensadoras, creadoras, luchadoras, curanderas y superhéroes.
| One of the brilliant interiors – The page showing a young girl who traded in her Barbie for “something less destructive”/”algo menos destructivo.” |
I particularly love Jacinta’s explanation of the title:
The title of this book is Las niñas pueden ser reyes: Libro para colorear (Girls Can Be Kings Coloring Book), inspired by Seondeok of Silla, a 7th-century Korean girl who became the first queen of Silla despite a misogynist uprising against her fueled by the motto “girls can’t be kings!” I learned of her from the incredible book Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls.
It’s inspiring to see how powerful knowing real history that includes woman can be — the story of Seondeok, told in one book, inspiring Jacinta’s Spanish version of this book, and reaching out to all the readers (and colorers) to come!
| The Spanish version of one of my favorite pages in the original: “Nobody wants to fight the patriarchy alone. Make friends.” |
I’m very excited about this coloring book—it’s absolutely something I wish I’d had back when I was a little kid!
