I'm glad I asked.

I took Bunny to get her first library card the other day. She was very excited. The children’s section is quite large, and includes one shelf labelled something like Fun for Boys, with books with blue stickers, and another shelf labelled Fun for Girls, with pink stickers. I asked quite neutrally why they had that, and got some stock standard answer which didn’t really seem to say anything, so I said, quite pleasantly, that it seemed out of touch with today’s reality.

That got the librarian’s attention and she explained quite enthusiastically that it’s a “Reluctant Reader” program – that while most kids will happily browse all the shelves, some boys are brought in by their mums and are reluctant to pick up books, and the ‘boys’ shelf is designed to appeal to them, full of exciting boy stuff, I expect. The only reason they have a 'girls' shelf at all is to make it 'equal'. She said the girls still read from the 'boys' shelf and that the books from both shelves are rotated into the wider reading section on a regular basis.