Francesca Cavallo reads from ‘Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls’ in Chicago in 2017. Image: Francesca Cavallo
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
‘The Stars Await Us’
A great many of our international book-publishing professional readership are familiar with the Rebel Girls books for young readers.
Today (March 20), the Rebel Girls co-author Francesca Cavallo has launched her newest work, having flown to New York City for the release in the United States market.
On April 1, Bologna Children’s Book Fair‘s world-traveling gathering of publishing industry professionals will be among the first to have a chance to hear Cavallo talk about her pathway from Rebel Girls to Boys of the Future.
Stellar Stories for Boys of the Future is a collection of 12 tales “across the galaxy” described as “fairytales redefining the boundaries of boyhood as a space filled with adventure, fun, compassion, honor, and love.” The book constructs “an imaginative journey through space,” landing “on planets where boys can be brave, kind, creative, and curious—and don’t need to be heroes to feel loved.”
For a title not being placed by a major international publishing house, Stellar Stories, with its illustrations by Luis San Vincente, is making eye-popping headway in international rights sales: It’s already out in Cavallo’s native Italian as well as in Danish; Portuguese (Brazil); and German. By the end of the year, Cavallo expects it to have been published in Spanish, Catalan, Polish, and Croatian.
And at Bologna , Cavallo will join three fellow compassionate, thoughtful, and agile thinkers in a special session moderated by Publishing Perspectives and focused on book publishing and male readers, especially the younger ones. Here are the details:
An image from ‘Stellar Stories for Boys of the Future’ by illustrator Luis San Vincente
Where the Boys Are: The Right Books Can Make Them Heroes
April 1
11:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.
Content Café (Hall 30 at BolognaFiere)
With:
- Francesca Cavallo, author of Stellar Stories for Future Boys, and Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls
- Michiel Kolman, senior vice-president of Elsevier and chair of the Inclusive Publishing and Literacy Committee of the International Publishers Association (IPA)
- Maria Russo, editor at large with Union Square Kids, and formerly editor of children’s books with The New York Times
- Jonathan Simcosky, Quarto/Quarry Books senior acquiring editor, publisher of Yes, Boys Can! Inspiring Stories of Men Who Changed the World
- Moderated by Porter Anderson, Publishing Perspectives‘ editor-in-chief
At a time when many boys and young men are struggling to finish school, earn a degree, develop a career, and become the loving, supportive husbands and fathers we know they can be, this panel will examine the unique opportunity the book industry has to help young men navigate their crises, just as it has consistently done for girls and young women.
Indeed, this is the thinking behind Quarto/Quarry senior acquiring editor Jonathan Simcosky‘s development of Richard V. Reeves‘ and Jonathan Juravich’s new Yes, Boys Can! Inspiring Stories of Men Who Changed the World, which was introduced in October at Frankfurter Buchmesse.
One thing that Simcosky has said to Publishing Perspectives this week during our preparations for the Bologna panel is, “No doubt for the better, there are now loads of books for girls. But more than one parent has recounted to me how their boys were reading those books because there wasn’t really anything for them.”
‘New Alliances, New Ways To Exist’
Francesca Cavallo with Elena Favilli published Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls in 2016 and found a huge hit in the making. Here were empowering, uplifting, inspirational stories of some of the world’s most iconic women—Ada Lovelace, Amelia Earhart, Julia Child, Maya Angelou, Joan Jett, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Frida Kahlo, Michelle Obama, and many more.
“Don’t we love books precisely because they open doors to dimensions we never knew existed? If we don’t allow books to do that, then what exactly are we defending by calling publishing a bastion of democracy?”Francesca Cavallo
That bestselling book had arrived just as many young women were struggling with battered self-esteem issues, trouble finding their way in school and careers, a sense that the world was stacked against them, that they could never live up to expectations of what was “beautiful” or “smart” or “successful.” Rebel Girls would go on to prompt more books and products, fueling the “girl power” craved by many youngsters.
And yet, this had been no soaring tale of immediate success. Cavallo had written seven books prior to the first Rebel Girls. Her experiences with traditional publishers weren’t good. She recalls having little marketing or support on the market, and being left “sorely disappointed,” she has said. “An awful experience.”
Using Kickstarter to crowd-fund publication, Cavallo and Favilli raised US$675,000 from more than 13,000 backers in 75 countries. Despite professional representation, the two put their “book of stories about real women written in the style of fairy tales” onto the market, themselves, building a publishing firm of their own, seeing their book on The New York Times‘ bestseller list for 30 weeks, and watching it be translated into 49 languages.
But after the exhilaration of the Rebel Girls experience, Cavallo found that publishers “wanted to turn me into a brand” and she was (and is) much more inclined to look for “new alliances, new ways to exist.”
“Don’t we love books precisely because they open doors to dimensions we never knew existed?” she has written about the experience. “If we don’t allow books to do that, then what exactly are we defending by calling publishing a bastion of democracy?”
What Cavallo would do next would surprise her in many ways. “A book for boys,” she has written, “is a risky business.”
Bologna’s ‘Where the Boys Are’ panelists are, from left, Francesca Cavallo, Michiel Kolman, Maria Russo, and Jonathan Simcosky
‘What About Boys?’
For all the acclaim and success Cavallo has had with the Rebel Girls body of work, she writes very affectingly about how, “From the moment the book came out, there was a question I got asked over and over again: ‘What about boys?'”
In an essay on her Boys of the Future Substack, she recalls the “What about boys?” question that dogged her:
“For years, I found that question irritating, gratuitously polemical. I refused to answer because I thought nothing more could be said about boys and men. After all, I thought, men had received way too much attention, and it was finally time to look elsewhere.
“What are the obstacles that boys will face because they are boys? What role does the system play in shaping boys’ lives? What is the dark side of male privilege, and what can be done to expose the fallacies of this system and make sure that boys learn there may be an alternative?”Francesca Cavallo“If the past had been ‘male’, the future had to be ‘female’. Right?
“But where does that leave boys?
“I took an honest look at my prejudice: when I created Rebel Girls I had no problem believing that girls’ ‘submissive nature’ wasn’t nature at all. I knew that it was the culture that we created that convinced us that women weren’t suited for leadership positions.
“So why was there a part of me that believed in the ‘aggressive nature’ of boys? Wasn’t I supposed to apply the same principle to them? Could it be possible that—just like we do with girls—we create for boys and men a culture of aggression, and apathy… and then we call it nature?
“If I wanted to write a book to empower boys and to offer boys and girls a healthier, wider interpretation of masculinity…
“I needed to start from a place of trust. I couldn’t start from suspicion. No child deserves to be treated as a suspect.”
Two years of research into the formative factors in various masculinities “from an anthropological, psychological, and sociological standpoint. The discoveries I made left me aghast. … The stories I wrote are not about condemning masculinity; they are about reclaiming it as a space full of care, honesty, and honor. As a space full of light, connection, and love.”
The April 1 “Where the Boys Are” panel is organized by Bologna Children’s Book Fair and has the support of ITA, the Italian Trade Agency, and MAECI, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
A Programming Note
Those reading us from New York, on Saturday (March 22), Francesca Cavallo will do an interactive reading and signing of her new ‘Stellar Stories for Boys of the Future’ for families and kids at 3 p.m. ET. The event is at Le Meraviglie, 108 Montague Street in Brooklyn Heights.
Recent writings on Bologna Children’s Book Fair 2025:
Bologna Book Plus: An Afternoon Forum on Audiobooks
Bologna’s 2025 Ragazzi Award Winners: 3,858 Entries
London to Bologna: Estonian Readers Ask for English
Bologna’s Licensing Fair Announces Its 2024 Programming
Bologna Licensing Awards Name Their 2025 Shortlists
Rights Edition: Bologna Children’s Book Fair’s Evolving Rights Hubs
At Bologna: Record Entries for Its 2025 Illustrators Exhibition
Bologna Children’s Book Fair’s ‘Grand Tour’ Heads to Angoulême
At BCBF, Bologna Book Plus 2025 Announces an ‘AI Summit’
Italy in India: Bologna Children’s Book Fair Is Honored at Chennai
Guadalajara Book Fair Opens With New Bologna Prize
Bologna Book Plus 2025 Has Another ‘Audio Forum’ and ‘Ambassador’
More from Publishing Perspectives on Bologna Children’s Book Fair is here, more on Bologna Book Plus is here, more on children’s books is here, more on the Italian market is here, more on world publishing’s trade shows and book fairs is here, and more on boys and reading is here. For more on the subject of the crises facing young men and boys, we recommend you see the American Institute for Boys and Men, founded and led by researcher and author Richard V. Reeves.