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

[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 ;)