This thought-provoking extract is taken from James Moloney's book, Boys and Books (ABC, 2000) http://www.jamesmoloney.com.au/
To answer a question such as "What DO boys like to read?" is almost impossible. All manner of conflicting generalisations get in the way. For example, are we talking about willing readers or reluctant readers. Are we looking for books a boy will read by himself or books to read to a boy.
By way of introducing this section, I will blaze ahead regardless with a few point distilled from my years as a librarian in an all boys school. More detailed consideration and practical assessments of what we parents (and teacher) can do will follow.
By way of introducing this section, I will blaze ahead regardless with a few point distilled from my years as a librarian in an all boys school. More detailed consideration and practical assessments of what we parents (and teacher) can do will follow.
* It is a mistake to believe that boys in general and reluctant readers in particular, do not like fiction. It is often the type of fiction presented to them that is the source of their rejection. On the whole, boys enjoy books which place action ahead of emotion and where what the characters do is more important that what the characters think or feel. Hence, the apparent preference for the action novel. These are the equivalent of thrillers and detective stories in adult reading matter. They often come in series to help marketing.
* Boys tend to like books which match their image of themselves. They want to be able to identify themselves and what they would like to be and do. This is why books about characters engaged in sport have always held at least an initial attraction for boys.
* Unfortunately, many novels with sporting action and themes fail because they do not deliver what the boy is expecting. This is often the unrealistic hope that reading the book will be just like playing the game. Sorry boys - no can do. There is a fundamental difference between doing something and reading about it. Other boys are lost when the story does not go where they want it to go which is in a direction close to their own personal experience. Few sport centred novels live up to expectation.
* Boys love to have fun so they want books that are fun, that make them laugh and appeal to their sense of madcap mayhem. This is all tied up with their image of the quintessential boy and as much as boyishness can be defined and distilled, they love to find it in the books they read. Few writers are able to capture that "boyishness" in print.
* A significant part of the mayhem that boys love is poking fun at others, especially adults. Boys continually find themselves told to behave, to be tidier and less boisterous so books where the characters triumphantly break out of these restrictions are greatly prized.
* Boys have an image of themselves as anarchic beings bringing chaos to stultifying order, even when they are the gentlest and most amenable lambs you would hope to have in the house. Used cynically, this can serve to re-enforce the most destructive and dehumanising aspects of masculine stereotypes. Yet such cynicism badly misreads what boys are about. Yes, they love tales of subversion but this subversion is oddly true to a sense of justice and right. Boys will grin and cheer when the villain comes to a sticky or humiliating end but only when it is clear that such a fate is richly deserved.
