Quick! Write that boy a book!

[spqrblues]

(A rant, not related to Rome at all. You can skip it.)

It's taken a long time, but I'm finally hearing, from more and more quarters, exasperation at the sheer bewildering wrongness of the near-constant insistence in the publishing industry that "we need more boy books"—a mantra I've been hearing since Day One of entering the publishing field. (Never mind for now what a "boy book" actually is—you can refer to the section in the Chicago Manual style guide on removing girl cooties.) A few days ago, YA author Tamora Pierce questioned this Truth in her journal, in which, along with much other spirited commentary on a variety of sub- and related topics, she states:

In the last couple of years, there has been a lot of stuff about how we don't have enough books out there for boys.

The last couple of years? Try the last couple of decades.

I have no idea when this idea originated—but I'm thinking it began whenever someone saw that there were a noticeable number of books that girls really like, with strong female heroines who are interested in something other than cute boys and taffeta (not that there's anything wrong with either, in moderate amounts). That you could look at a bookstore children's section and see more than Tom Swift, Boy Scout manuals, and the tamer novels of Robert Heinlein. Still it goes on, the pressure to make books "boy friendly," because (I am often told) we must give boys more, or they won't read at all. There just isn't enough reading material in the world directed at males. Keep this just between you and me, but I hear there are entire genres of novels written with the expectation that no men will read them at all (Romance genre, I'm looking at you).

In all seriousness, I've heard there's a phenomenon in which a man can be sitting in a lecture hall full of men, then if a handful of women enter and take seats, there's a perception that the room has been, well, taken over by women, a perception that there are many more women in the room, by percentage, than there actually are. I explain it poorly. But I did hear this, probably in lj or on DailyKos, so you know it's real.

I'm tired of being expected to make books I work on more "appealing to boys" (read: more violent! more muscle-y! more Xtreme! no kitties with pink bows! toss in a four-page fight scene!) because what's of prime importance is capturing the wild male reader, and girls, well, they'll accept anything you have on offer. One hears this at conferences (which I attended far too many of the past few weeks). One hears this at acquisitions meetings. I think the company I work for is bending away from this a little bit, but not in a way I would prefer. Can't have everything. Also, can't be more specific in a public forum. Alas.

I'd quote what YA editor Sharyn November has to say about the perpetual "we need more books for boys" wail, but this is a family journal. I only allow naked body parts, not cussing. Oh, wait, I allow cussing, too. Okay, never mind.

Comments

A boy-friendly journal!

[nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com]

Did I miss the naked body parts?

Re: A boy-friendly journal!

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

As a matter of fact, yes. Just two days ago, but you have to look in the spqrblues.com archives, as I run a clean shop here. Sort of.

I am so tired, I don't even know what I'm typing, so pretend this entry is brilliant rhetoric. kthx.

[cheqyr.livejournal.com]

I think there aren't nearly enough books for boys which teach them the valuable skills that so many men seem to lack, such as communication, compassion, cooking, cleaning, mending, choosing a wardrobe, and child-rearing.

Yes. We definitely need more boy books.

[pikku-gen.livejournal.com]

Amen to that. Was it Heinlein's, the famous quote "Specialisation is for insects"? I can't remember all of it, but there were pieces I absolutely agree on. Such as changing diapers and cooking a good meal.

Agh. Must I go and find it out? Yes, I think so.

Edit. Ha, found it! My Google-fu is mighty.

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

[perilousknits.livejournal.com]

Yes, the fact that I, a girl, will happily read Hatchet but a boy wouldn't be caught dead reading Are You There God, It's Me Margaret means that we need more boy books. We obviously should have just stopped with Hatchet; no need to sell additional merchandise when everyone can just make do with half . . . wait, did you say girls have disposable income? We need more girl books!!

sigh.

Gotta love Tamora Pierce. I wouldn't know how to foment revolution in a foreign country if not for her.

[mmoa.livejournal.com]

Gotta love Tamora Pierce. I wouldn't know how to foment revolution in a foreign country if not for her.

Or 'pop' a man out of his saddle during chilvaric contests. The woman rocks.

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

Silly. All we need are books with lots of violence and farting and pranks, and the occasional book with pink horses. That will cover the entire market.

Now, this Tamora Pierce you speak of, I assume there are pink horses in her books, since she is popular with the chicks.

[dr-phil-physics.livejournal.com]

Okay. I'm here for the Romans. And the occasional Daily Angst. And the comraderie of watching a Great Work in progress. Do I care that mein host is a hostess? Not one twit.

And I do read some Romance. Especially since one of my 2004 Clarion classmates is paranormal romance writer Marjorie M. Lou.

My sister is three years older than I am. I read everything she did plus everything I found to read.

And I've got a hard military SF story coming out in a lesbian anthology edited by another Clarion classmate.

Yup. I must be contaminated by all those girl cooties. I'll check with my wife and get back to you.

Dr. Phil

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

I believe you are hopelessly contaminated, and doomed to writing fiction with broad appeal. And you read Romance? Well, there you have it. The cooties have nested in your brain.

I wonder if, because you're a male writer, there are publishers who would accept your manuscripts as having "boy appeal" but would be wary of the same manuscript if it came from a female author. I just wonder. Because I'm not nearly paranoid enough.

Great Work, eh? You so know that buttering up the hostess is a sure way to get her to spend her lunch break drawing :)

[jdalton.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Interesting thesis. I will have to pay more attention to the classes I teach and look for patterns. I do know that there are a lot of boys who don't want to read books. But then again, this is not all there is to it. For example, many of these same boys would be quite happy to read non-fiction books, and just don't because when their teachers say "read a book" it is often assumed by both parties that they mean a story book. It also seems to be the case than most younger girls like to read, but their numbers drop off as they get older. And if we're talking comics, they're still extremely boy-dominated.

But who am I to judge? Half of the books I read as a kid had female protagonists and so do more than half of the stories I write. I couldn't tell you how to write a "boy book." I just know how to write books.

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

I love reading nonfiction. Science, history, history of science. Actually, I love to read everything. Except westerns. And non-historical mysteries. And those YA chick books with the pink covers with photos of girls with polka-dotted handbags. Okay, maybe I don't read everything.

A female protagonist is of course an automatic disqualifier for something being a boy book. Even if she has a loyal male sidekick. No way, nope, nuh uh. Chapters alternating between points of view would likely fail the test, too. Is it that boys don't want to read such books because they are uncomfortable empathising with a female character, don't want to risk feeling as if they are her? The fear of girl cooties must be learned behaviour. Are girl cooties less contagious in graphic novels than prose? Or are we simply talking about a segment of the population who, as you say, don't want to read story books, regardless of cootie content?

Apparently Jeff Smith's Bone (probably a male protagonist, but, you know, who can tell) is becoming very popular with teachers, because kids (any kids) who don't like reading can get credit for reading something like a thousand pages with the Bone omnibus, and enjoy the story while they're at it. I've heard this as an argument for including more graphic novels in the classroom, so I'm perfectly happy to repeat it. Through graphic novels, kids will develop necessary literacy skills and vocabulary and skills for processing visual information, whether or not they become voracious readers for life. I also wouldn't mind seeing nonfiction graphic novels for younger readers handled in a better (more artistic, less stilted) way than many of the curriculum-based series are now.

I'm guessing that the traditional YA publishers, those who are wading into graphic novels, if Bone were submitted to them today would say--because we need more books for boys--it's not sufficiently masculine. Just a suspicion.

[domitian8.livejournal.com]

I have to admit I get snide when people try to make the argument "we clearly need more 'boy' books because boys are lagging behind in reading & literacy". I just have a hard time believing that this is has all that much to do with curricula.
Boys aren't now, and historically haven't been, particularly disposed to cognition. I say this as a male, raised by women, who has never quite been able to figure out why so many of his peers are so bloody anti-intellectual.
And many of those who are intellectual still don't read.

Simple-minded stories about people with poor communication skills make for poor reading (in a number of senses).

And as for the publishers, somehow I don't see much profit in targeting that particular 'readership'.

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

I got a bit carried away in my response to mmoa below, but to sum it up: Do boys really read less, or is it that people in general (or in the English-language market) don't read much, but when they do read, what they want to read are "girl books"?

Profit is not mentioned, when I hear the discussion. It is, as you say, about literacy, about a segment of potential readers being neglected. If only they are given books, they will become lifelong readers of high intellect. To catch these readers, publishers will, in addition to books like Hatchet, look for manuscripts that are simple-minded and "fluffy" (fluffy in a masculine way, of course). It's much, much easier to find fluff in the slush pile than Hatchet.

From both publishers and anxious teachers who probably love reading themselves and want to instill that in all their students... There's a bit of desperation to it, like trying to win over your middle school crush, who just isn't interested in going out with you, no matter how many gifts you bring.

[ajodasso.livejournal.com]

This strikes me as complete b.s. if only because, based on ground experience and hearsay alone, I've known just as many young boys who like, say, His Dark Materials as I know young girls who do. What I'm seeing is a higher volume of books being published that appeal to both genders, and I think that's a fantastic trend.

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

I honestly do hope that a good story--barring those with an extremely focussed target, of which the traditional Romance novel is the easy example--has potential to apppeal to any reader.

It could be that "girl books" always have and always will appeal to both girls and boys, but that that the expansion of the market beyond the ripping yarn boy's own adventure story has created the false perception that post hoc ergo propter hoc. When publishing growth slumps, publishers look back in their basket of possible reasons, and "we support male literacy" is much more noble a discussion at conference panels than "we think these kids today do too much text messaging."

I love ripping yarns. Just read a fairly decent one with a girl protagonist and her male sidekick (The Strictest School in the World by Howard Whitehouse). Great fluff. Following the trend I have wanted so badly to join for, like, ten years, it is an illustrated novel (I have wanted to create illustrated novels for both YA and adults for sooooo long, but haven't had, or made, an opportunity, and now they are everywhere). All the drawings of the girl hero make her look like a boy in a dress, but I think it's because the artist only seems to have a couple of "faces" in the repertoire. Ripping yarn, regardless. I wonder if boys will read it.

[mmoa.livejournal.com]

To be perfectly frank, if these boys exist such that they are turned off by reading because of 'all' the pro-girl literature out there (and I don't believe they do) then clearly they don't 'deserve' to read at all. A good book is a good book, regardless of whom it is aimed at (and I say this as the surprised sister of a brother who had the habit of hoarding my Judy Blume books and putting them back in the wrong order so that I wouldn't notice. Personally, I think it's why he's apparently a great boyfriend, according to his ex's, anyway)

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

Hurrah for your well-rounded brother. I firmly believe that the experiences we have as we grow up, experienced solely through reading, can be as informative as what happens to us in the real world, not to mention fostering a sense of empathy.

One boy who grew up to be an editor recently said to me that the boys he knows read plenty of things, but a lot of young men may be more interested in sports magazines and X-Men and Naruto than 300-page bildungsromans. And in any case boys who are into a specific genre, such as science fiction or fantasy, are busily gobbling down books en masse and dissecting them on message boards and assessing minutiae with all the passion of an academic scholar.

There's that segment of thought that says men are more visual and women more verbal, usually brought up to explain different preferences in pr0n (though those thinkers may want to check out some yaoi galleries sometime and reassess). Then the contrasting argument that boys will read more if young-adult publishers just stop flooding the shelves with all these books boys don't need such as, oh, Judy Blume and Sphere of Secrets and Tamora Pierce and the "problem" novels. The discussion originates from teachers and librarians and journalists as well as publishers, and even the publishers never claim it's based on marketing and a desire to increase profits. Myself, I've never heard anyone say "we need more of that male spending money" the way some publishers are eyeing the manga market and rubbing their chins and muttering, "maybe we can get girls to give us their money too."

It's a concern about literacy and fairness. And the perception of neglectful publishing. Want to catch the eye of many YA editors? Mention "high boy appeal" in your manuscript's cover letter. Boys are considered to be falling behind. Perhaps this is in parallel to the idea that girls fall behind in mathematics at a certain age, when they begin to be discouraged from maths and sciences in subtle ways. Setting aside any theories about women being wired for verbal communication and the transmission of complex social and generational information (hey, they don't call 'em old wives' tales for nothin'), it's possible there's more impetus for girls in many societies to want to explore fictional worlds, to gain experiences they may not have physical access to, to learn communication, empathy, and how people react and interact in a variety of situations, even as they practice social interaction with their peers. Boys do the same, but could it be that girls take this to a much higher level?

Do boys really read less, or is it that people in general (or in the English-language market) don't read much, but when they do, whoever they are, what they want to read are "girl books"?

[kyleen66.livejournal.com]

I don't get what the real difference between writing for females and males would be. I guess it would be more action, less feelings. Right?

Maybe we just need to all write LIKE men to get boys to read our work?

Here's a fun thing I found.

http://bookblog.net/gender/genie.php

It'll analyse the writing and come up if it was written by a male or female.

I've been putting snippets in. B2Creative keeps coming up male. Perhaps she's the one that needs to be writing boy books.

[b2creative.livejournal.com]

Whaa? Me? Huh?

I'm thumbing through my Chicago Manual trying to find that section on removing cooties. I can't find it! This is why I've never submitted anything for publishing - my writing is positively infested with girl cooties!

You must have put in a section that featured Tamarin. Maybe even the part where he did, y'know, THAT. 'Cause that part is actually devoid of girl cooties, I believe. Maybe. Hmm.

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

The blog entry above:

Words: 560
Female Score: 684
Male Score: 1085
The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

[alex-smollett.livejournal.com]

Funny, there's a similar debate over boys falling behind girls in (among other things) reading here in Sweden, but I don't think anyone suggests writing more "boy books" as a solution to the problem. Maybe because there are a lot of YA books on the Swedish market with clear boy appeal. I have a very hard time believing there are less such books on the English market. No, I don't think the problem lies there. The problem lies with a culture where "real men" can't be emotionally carried away without lots of screaming, running about and possibly some assault and property damage. Where if it's not visible or quantifiable it doesn't count. (I think this is part of why social networks sites are so popular - all of a sudden your previosly "invisible" social network can be weighed and measured.) Sitting down and reading a book, where's the measured value in that?

I recently listened to a very interesting lecture by Judith Fetterley where she argued that male "coming of age" stories typically are about separation. Period. Female stories on the other hand are about cycles of separation and return. Even Romance novels are typically about the heroine moving from one relationship to another (daughter to wife). Which leads to or follows from a culture where it's the norm for men to avoid relationships because it's important to be independent and they don't know how and they are afraid of separation etc, while women develop empathy and meaningful relationships and stuff, partially through reading. She said it better than me of course, what with her being a seasoned professor and all. Anyway, she saw a change in values coming on now with the increased focus on EQ and social networks, so those old-fashioned "boy books" might or should be on their way out actually.

Book networking

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

Interesting, about quantifying social networks, making the previously nebulous much more visible. The social networks of the wealthy and powerful, the Old Boys and such, have always had a real presence, but the rest of us just had friends and acquaintances. Now we too have status based on measurable figures.

There are a handful of book-related social networking sites out there. I think they just haven't caught onto the right presentation to become as popular as a MySpace. Or it could be that people's reading interests are so varied, any ranking based on who is reading the same books you're reading will be unfulfilling unless everyone is reading the same bestsellers. A networking site based on a genre, or limited to an age category, might be more successful. Something specifically for kid-lit, that allows kids (or teachers or grownups who like the category) to keep lists of everything they're reading and share their reading lists and reviews with others, whether the books are novels, nonfiction, comics, in other languages, whatever they may be. And that also rewards, in some virtual way, those who read a lot or explore a lot of different types of books. (This paragraph may be a little incoherent, as I am trying to keep up with some sparks bouncing erratically around my brain trying to form into a solid idea.) I've seen a few kid-review sites here and there, but I don't think they are set up as a way to measure one's social/book networking. If something like this exists, I'd bet it would be focussed on a single publisher's titles, like, say, Scholastic, or TokyoPop might have something like it for manga. Time to go web surfing and see if anything broader exists yet, and, if not, see what it will take to make it so ;)

[paddybrown.livejournal.com]

I'm here for the comics, but I couldn't let this go without commenting.

What I've noticed a lot in recent years is that if you express any concern at all for the well-being of boys, you get accused by women of being resentful that girls are doing so well. It's not a zero sum game, and the boys of today are not the same people as those boys who had so many advantages decades ago. Nowadays, children's publishing and primary education are almost entirely female businesses, and anything boys are good at or enjoy that girls aren't or don't is disparaged as meritless trash or borderline autism. A little balance would be nice, don't you think?

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

Absolutely, yes. A little balance would be awfully nice.

You may want to reexamine the center of the discussion. The fact is that there are many books available for boys--including both prose and graphic novels, and magazines and all formats. But we'll focus on my own focus: prose and graphic novels. The selection has not dwindled, and there are books of all types and genres that should and do appeal across the board. The perception of available books has changed.

The "we need more boy books" contingent argues as if it is a zero-sum game:

If there exist "girl books" (in particular books with female protagonists), there must therefore be insufficient books for boys. This is the "women in the lecture hall" phenomenon noted above.
and
If boys truly are not reading as much as girls are, therefore it must be because there are not enough books of the right boyish stuff.

The perception of imbalance is merely that--and a fear that publishing must be doing something wrong if catalogues are not sufficiently tipped "toward boys" (what "toward boys" really means is up for debate--I merely present to you what some publishers look for in a "boy book"). There are more books in print than ever before--but the percentage of those that are "boy's own adventure" books is no longer as high as it once was, and the demarcation between "boy books" and "girly books" is no longer as clear. The lecture hall looks different, even though it has become a stadium.

The more complex discussion you can engage in is:

1) is it true boys aren't reading enough (in that their verbal skills are insufficient to prepare them to succeed in personal life and the international community)?

2) is it true boys won't read books with strong female characters or certain types of plots?

3) is it true boys will only read boks with a high violence content or what paddybrown categorises as "disparaged as meritless trash or borderline autism"?

4) Are male readers feeling a lack of books to read? (Or are they merely disgruntled at having to look through so many other books to find what they'd like, just like, say, a hard sf reader trying to find the Elizabeth Moon books buried in all the high fantasy novels down at the local chain bookstore?)

5) if even more "high boy appeal" material is provided than already widely and easily available, will young boys actually read it, instead of reading, say, Harry Potter and Scott Westerfeld, Catherine Fisher and Ysabeau Wilce, or other YA authors of thriller or adventure stories considered marginal or insufficiently boyish?

The company for which I work, by the way, is almost entirely a male-run business, with primarily males at the top and all but two or three women in strictly subordinate roles. You will find that the topmost echelon in publishing is still dominated by men, though there is, in fact, a strong female presence in the industry deciding the day-to-day shape of their lists. Clearly "female business" does not equate to "she-woman man-haters club, no boy stuff allowed." Because, if you examine your argument, children's publishing and primary education are almost entirely female businesses, but children's publishing and primary educators are the very people declaiming that "we need more books for boys."

Have a read through the comments to this entry for other male and female points of view, if gender of the writer is a useful way to weigh the arguments. Also some of the people I have been discussing this with in the industry are such manly men that they actually solely edit books about fast cars, vroom vroom.

I'm interested in hearing more of your perspective. It's very welcome here, but you'll likely get my usual longwinded reply.

[quirkybird.livejournal.com]

If only they'd make more video games that girls want to play, the literacy rate for girls would fall off, and we'd finally achieve parity!

[meritahut.livejournal.com]

When I play Grand Theft Auto, I change my avatar either to the mini-skirted woman with the fanny pack, or the little old lady with the shopping bag. It's oddly satisfying. But I wish the game would let me carjack a pretty pink pony. This is why I don't play it very often. That and the lack of manicure salons in the simulated city.

In all seriousness, if they made a game in which you could go into all those stores and poke around, only it was set in ancient Rome or Elizabethan England or modern-day Tokyo, and you could just have a sim-vacation and buy stuff and get a hotel room and watch local entertainments and try not to run out of travellers' cheques, I would be ALL OVER THAT. If I had the technology and the time, I'd be creating a "vacation in Herculaneum" game right now to replace my old virtual Herculaneum website. But of course, try bringing that idea to marketing: "Do you get to stab anyone?" "Nope." "Race chariots?" "Nope." "What do you do?" "Go out to dinner, buy stuff in the market, fish with the local fishermen." "You're kidding, right?")