The picture book represents the first step in a child's literacy, that is, it opens the door to the world of literature for children. It is important to pay attention to the kind of picture books we offer children because it is of great importance that they are of high quality, given that they appear in the most sensitive period of a person's life. Children very often identify with characters who have similarities with them or literature can help them understand or accept people who are different from them, but if more picture books, novels and stories that include characters with disabilities are not introduced, boys and girls alike in the roles of the main characters, children will be denied that opportunity. The aim of this paper is to come to the conclusion through the analysis of whether boys or girls appear more often as the main characters with difficulties in picture books and whether certain difficulties are exclusively related to one gender. This paper will analyze twenty-one picture books whose main characters are faced with various difficulties such as autism spectrum disorders, hyperactive disorder, Down's syndrome, blindness, low vision, stuttering, physical disability, cerebral palsy, intellectual disabilities, dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia. A sample of twenty-one picture books published between 2001 and 2021 shows an almost equal number of male main characters and female main characters facing the aforementioned difficulties.