The book «Paul is lava»
Paul is lava, a book on gender stereotypes in child-rearing, based on Sean Bern’s work on gender psychology. The title of the book is the name of the child’s game, which illustrates well the attitude of adults towards the sex of the child.
This white block of the book, the metaphor of the child, is a clean leaf that, from childhood, begins to deter adult rules and stereotypes, which are represented by colour plates on the sides. They have convulsive letters of opposite colors, resembling children’s toys. The book was created as part of student work at the University of Stroganov, and the teacher was Tatiana Muhorty.
The book consists of two colours, blue and pink, a part in blue that speaks of stereotypes in the upbringing of boys, and a part in pink that speaks of girls. These colors are ironic over gender stereotypes that go through the book.
The book is a two-way book, you can read it from two sides, you just have to turn it over. There is also irony over gender stereotypes — that boys and girls live in parallel worlds and are unable to understand each other. In the course of the book, pink and blue texts are inserted into the narrative, breaking the grid, and by the middle of the pink and blue, the same number becomes a symbol of equal treatment for children.
The title in the book is like a game of classics. Each chapter begins with a modular typeface, which is used on the cover of the book, and it resembles children’s cubes with letters, but with its size and meaning, the inscription becomes a pressurizing, depressing character. The title of the chapters is the phrases that we all heard as a child: «beauty demands sacrifice», «you’re a woman or something», «boys don’t cry», «beat means love» and others.
An important part of the narrative is the historical inserts, because that’s how stereotypes are formed — people raise children like their parents, and this pathetic behavior is repeated from generation to generation. Therefore, in the design of these blocks of text, the images of the children’s inscriptions (which are based on the principle of repetition of the sign) and the old texts with the red letter were mixed. This section contains excerpts from Homestroy, the charter of the Institute of Generous Girls, Peter’s punishment of 1 young man, and other ancient texts.
