Boys Read, Too
Kendra C. Highley: Guest Post
As a writer of YA fiction, it always
frustrates me when I hear a fourteen-year-old guy say, “I don’t read.” It frustrates me more when I ask him why and
he says, “’cause all those books in the teen section have girls in fancy
dresses on the cover.”
“All those books” is a wee bit of
teen hyperbole of course--the cover for The
Hunger Games is about as non-gender specific as you can get--but it speaks
to a bigger problem we have in YA today: boys don’t think YA fiction is written
for them. The thing is, they’re wrong,
but they don’t see it because at Barnes & Noble, most of the “cover out”
books in the teen section have pretty girls in fancy dresses on the front.
And here’s the real pity: Big-6 publishers are acquiring fewer and fewer
YA novels with male main characters (or those that might be considered
“boy-focused”). A number of editors and agents I follow online have made
statements to that fact, primarily because “girl-focused” YA sells better. I
understand publishing is a business--absolutely. My day job is in corporate
America, and I get that profits matter. I just worry about this prevalent belief
that boys don’t read. My middle-school aged son reads six to eight hours a week,
and I’d love it if he becomes a lifelong reader. Unfortunately, it’s getting
harder and harder to find age-appropriate books that hold his interest.
But it’s more than that. I worry the
belief that “boys don’t read” leads to fewer books targeted at boys, who then
quit reading due to lack of content. What’s
the chicken, and what’s the egg?
To combat this notion, I often show
up at the high school youth group I sponsor with mental lists of books to suggest
to the students. When the guys roll their eyes about reading, I point them
toward Ender’s Game or Leviathan. A lot of times, they come
back asking for more book suggestions. It’s not hard to encourage boys to read
more; it’s really just a matter of knowing where to look for books that hit
home. Once the guys are sent in the right direction, they’ll mysteriously start
reading again. And that’s awesome.
