Every so often you get an article like "10 Tips to Get Boys to Read" or "Books Boys Will Actually Like". Or else you get someone super excited because, "Oh my gosh, it's a miracle. My son actually likes to read!"
Okay, listen. I'm all for encouraging anyone to read, especially kids. But this whole "boys don't read" thing has to stop. (A) It's not true and (B) it seems to be leading the publishing industry to the more sinister "boys don't read, so we better stop publishing books for them or else we'll lose money."
Start with me: I'm a boy, and I read. I always have. And I know other boys who read. My dad reads, my best friend MattyDub reads, my friend Cory reads, Bear,
Emmet, Jamie (he reads like six books a week), Whytey, Mike, Dave...
Those are men, Adam. I thought we were talking about boys.
Fine. Forget the fact that most of those guys have been reading
since they were boys. I've also got three teenage boys who come over every week to borrow every book I've got: Pratchett, Card, Tolkien, Rowling, Collins, Gaiman, Crichton, *DEEP BREATH* Asimov, Sanderson, Cashore, Brennan... (The only book I couldn't get them to borrow was
Silver Phoenix, I suspect because of the girl on the cover -- sorry,
Cindy, I tried).
Anecdotal evidence not good enough for you? All right. I searched for actual statistics on boys not reading and found
a single article. I guess in 2002, for overall book reading (whatever that means), young men were at 43%.
That's not a lot, Adam.
I know, hang on. It also put girls at 59%. Fewer boys than girls, but not much. It's still A LOT OF BOYS READING. In a classroom of 30 kids, it means half of them read. Of those readers, 9 are girls and 6 are boys. Certainly enough that books should be published for them, right?
Well, no, apparently. The biggest push still seems to go to books with lips on the cover, "Kiss" in the title, or protagonists with pink, sparkly tasers (for the record, I'm very excited about
Kiersten's book that comes out in 4 days, but you have to admit we boys are not the target audience).
There are exceptions, sure. But hearing from people in the industry, it sounds as though they're AFRAID to market books to boys.
Jason Pinter suggests this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Publishers believe boys don't read, so they target their book at the biggest market (girls). Boys find only romance stories (with girls or unrealistically hot boys on the cover) and head for the comics section or out the door. Publishers say, "See? They didn't touch [obscure boy-oriented title stocked between "Girl's Rock" and "My Secret Desire" (totally made-up titles)]. They must not like to read at all!"
And the cycle continues.
Jason also says that if the industry pushes boy books, boys will come to read them, even if it's slow at first. I agree. But for now can we stop being surprised when we see boys reading? Can we just believe that a lot of boys DO read, even if it's a whole 15% fewer than the girls?
Cuz the statistic that really worries me is that half of the kids in that study DON'T read. Let's work on them instead, aye?