It's Not DO Boys Read? It's WHAT Do Boys Read!

The New York Times published a disturbing article this past Sunday on boys and reading. Boys, it states, are trapped in a downward spiral when it comes to literacy: boys’ grade point averages are less than girls; their verbal skills are lagging; they are twice as likely to repeat a grade than a girl; and in federal writing tests, boys scored HALF of what girls score. It’s not just in the U.S., either. The problem affects most industrial nations.

There’s no single explanation for this disparity. However, with nations’ economies more dependent on workers who can multi-task and communicate over a broad spectrum of platforms, it may be that poor reading and writing skills now stand out more clearly than ever. “The world has gotten more verbal.” Reading is not simply a nice way to spend a leisurely hour anymore. It has become a necessity. It’s the gateway to higher learning, better jobs, and higher wages.

The article also suggests that a way to pique a boy’s interest in reading is to ensure that books have boy-friendly subject matter: ghosts, explosions, gross stuff, and wresters. Why not add monsters, aliens, soldiers, videogames, extreme sports, and scary stuff? That is exactly what we do at Stone Arch Books. It has always been our mission to reach those reluctant and struggling readers, especially boys, by starting right where they are. No boy is going to pick up War and Peace, but he will read about the clash of armies, artillery, bombs, and blood. And isn’t that what the classic tales were all about? Gilgamesh, the Odyssey, the Iliad, the chronicles of King Arthur. We need more books to pull a boy into that magical archway leading toward Literature; but we can’t always do it with Dickens, Hemingway, and Chabon. But we might do it with Captain Underpants, a wimpy kid, or Batman. And once those boys are through the archway, there’s no turning back.

About the boy crisis

Are you all on the Ypulse.com mailing list? I love getting the daily collection of links and articles about kids/tweens/teens. One of the links today, though, really hit home, both on a professional and personal level. (Professional because I work on books for boys, and personal because I have a little boy.) Here's the link.

I know I'm not the first concerned person to ask what we can do about this "boy crisis" (and note that girls aren't safe either, with higher rates of depression and eating disorders, but the article seems to say that boys are worse off these days). How can we get kids to value education and reading and caring about themselves and others? I wish I could think of some big program that would fix things. Instead, I guess we all have to do what we can.

What I can do on a professional level is put my passion into helping to create books that boys will love--and making sure the messages inside the books are about teamwork, citizenship, caring, intelligence. We do that every day here at Stone Arch. We put a ton of heart and soul into each of our books, and I hope that when boys (and girls!) read them, they feel cared-for--because we do care about our readers. On a personal level, my husband and I can read to our son, give him lots of hugs, and model good behavior. We can make it clear that our values and priorities are in being caring to others and to ourselves. We can show him how much we love reading and writing. We can make him our first priority, even when he's not an infant anymore. We can make sure he knows he's worth it. Will that be enough? Maybe. I hope so. Will my professional work on books be enough? Certainly not. Everyone needs to do the same, in whatever way they can. I hope we can stop this crisis before it gets worse.

more soon--
Beth