Just wanted to say that I think this is an *excellent* point.

One of the reasons I like TreasuryIslands so much is that it calls to my nostalgia for the books I loved as a child. Books *stay with you*. So this is very important.

One book which stayed with me was Rita the Rescuer, little girl turned SUPERHERO.

Sorry the numbers are so small! Editing fail, pic came out a bit small there!

The horizontal dotted line represents a 1:1 ratio where there is an equal number of male and female characters (note how the bars are closer to the dotted line during the 1920s and 1990s). The higher the bar, the more males to females, and the greater the gender disparity.

Hope this makes sense!

No problem.

The graphs represent the ratio of male to female characters. The vertical axis is number of male characters for every one female character (depending on the title of the graph). Ideally all the bars would stop at the dotted line, meaning a ratio of 1:1.

So, for example, the fourth graph shows that in books published between 1960-69 with animal central characters there were three male protagonists to every female one.

At least, that’s how I understood it. I do hope I haven’t got it terribly wrong!

The graphs are the ratios of male to female characters. So the number on the Y axis is the number of male central characters for every 1 female central character. A value of 1, the dotted horizontal line, would be equal. Taller bars mean more male central characters.

Oooo, I’ve not come across that one, but I do like her novels. *runs to Amazon*