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Is seems like the one issue that keeps going around and around is about books for boys. Where are they? What are the good ones? Why aren't there more? There are plenty of great books. Why do they have be "boy" books and "girl" books? Bloggers have started to consider that maybe we've been asking the wrong question. Maybe the question isn't about where the books for boys are but why boys need books about boys? Why is it that boys can't read books about girls?
It all started with an article in the School Library Journal by longtime librarian Diantha McBride. Based on her experience she offered up some suggestions for publishers, including this one:
I'm afraid this won't be popular, but I need more books for boys—as do most librarians who work with young people. I've noticed that lots of books with female characters aren't really about being female. In fact, in many cases, the main characters could just as easily have been males—and that would make my job a lot easier.
Now, if she were arguing that YA books with female characters could do with some better covers (particular ones in which the female on the cover has heads) I'd grant her that. But that's not what she's saying. She's saying that the books shouldn't be about girls at all. Why shouldn't boys read books about girls? Martha Brockenbrough offered a rebuttal to McBride and wonders if we are letting boys be book bigots.
I get where you're coming from. But the problem isn't the books, it's the way we're raising our boys. If they aren't willing to read about girls, and if we're indulging that sort of nonsense, then we are raising boys who will have a hard time functioning in a world where girls play serious roles. In other words, the real world.
She goes on to suggest that we consider the implications if you switch "female character" with other characteristics, such as race. Can you imagine saying that you wouldn't read a book about a black character, or a Hispanic character? Why is it that it's ok to limit boy's reading based on gender if we wouldn't do it based on race?
Hoyden About Town isn't pleased with the McBride's suggestion at all.
She seems particularly appalled that there are female protagonists in books that aren’t specifically about female topics. Whatever they are. Shopping and boys, I guess? Ponies? Glitter makeup? How dare girls feature in books about boystuff, like adventure and mystery? Boys must have manly role models! They can’t be expected to relate to those freaky cootie-wielding hormone-laden chicks!
Yes! Girls can't do boy things. We can't save the prince or even ourselves. Only boys should do those things because if girls do it what will happen to the boy. Oh wait, does that sound familiar? That right, because books for boys are emasculating unless they get to do the rescuing.
YA Fabulous says we shouldn't cater to gender-based hostility.
Boys need books with male narrators because they can’t see themselves in a female perspective, because they’ve been by a society that is hostile to women and girls. The answer is not to cater to this hostility, it is to come up with creative ways to make the books appealing. I cannot believe this that I’m reading, that a librarian, who might serve girls like me, who likes to read about adventures and magic and male-gendered things, would suggest erasing the female to comfort and entice boys into reading. Hells yeah! That’s exactly the way to make boys more likely to grow up and not care whether or not the books they’re reading have women as the main charac—oh wait.
No one is arguing that there shouldn't be books with boys as male characters, but we shouldn't erase the strong female characters to make way for them. Do your boys only read books that have boys as main characters?
Contributing Editor Sassymonkey also blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.
