Why Johnny won’t read |
by Gina Dalfonzo |
The Weekly Standard has a very good piece about the decline in boys' reading habits. Unfortunately, it's subscriber-only. It's in the current issue, though, so you can pick up a copy at a bookstore or newsstand. In the meantime, an excerpt:
Boys prefer a definitely un-sensitive Conan the Barbarian, or G.I. Joe, or Huckleberry Finn, and without regard to his Indo-European heritage, to a heroine whose life story involves being a "survivor" after bearing her father's baby at age 12, and then becoming pregnant by him again at age 16. This is the story of Precious Jones in Push, a book recommended on the American Library Association's website for young adult readers as one of the 25 "Outstanding Books for the College Bound." It involves a "dedicated teacher, and classmates who understand" at an alternative school. Another book, My Heartbeat, has this enticing blurb: "Can Ellen get the boy who loves her brother?"
Of the 25 books on this list, 18 are novels or memoirs. The protagonists in 14 of these are female and, overwhelmingly, the accompanying blurbs describe such plots involving conflicts of a personal nature, with emotional resolutions. One of the few books that feature male protagonists, Forgotten Fire, is described as a "touching and heart-wrenching portrait of pain and triumph" during the Armenian Genocide while Postcards from No Man's Land is about 17-year-old Jacob's "self-discovery."
No books on this list offer soldiers, male athletes, or adventurers.
Syllabi of classes in library science, linked on the ALA's web page, reveal what future librarians study. At the University of Iowa, one class, "Trends and Issues in Literature for Young Adults," includes such required reading for librarians-in-training as: Born Confused; Rainbow Boys; how i live now; Stoner & Spaz; Vegan, Virgin, Valentine. And while the course description acknowledges a focus on the challenges of contemporary culture, some of these kinds of books--like the explicitly homoerotic play Angels in America, assigned to students at a high school in Illinois, and Prep, a coming-of-age novel assigned to 12-year-olds in California--have made headlines recently.
(Image courtesy of The Children's Book Consultancy)
The late Dr. Raymond Moore, father of the homeschool movement, gave us the reason long ago--boys are pushed into school before they are ready.
Readiness for reading and parents who read to their children are two factors that are trampled underfoot by today's too busy parents who welcome the push to force children to school even earlier.
Posted by: Michael Snoe | October 22, 2008 at 02:51 PM
I remember reading a number of 'boy and his dog(s)' type novels when I was in elementary school (late 80s). Things like 'Where the Red Fern Grows' and one who's name I can't recall about a young man who goes off to the woods and carves a house out of the trunk of a huge tree and just lives in the forest.
In middle school and high school, some required reading was decidedly unfun, 'The Scarlet Letter', 'Canterbury Tales' but I'm not sure if that was because it was required or if the story was actually unappealing (though I'm pretty sure The Scarlet Letter was just plain bad).
I much preferred my own reading selections during middle and high school, Fahrenheit 451, LotR (and other Tolkien), other fantasy book series. In retrospect I probably would have benefited from an expansion of genres.
I don't know if any of this is especially insightful or useful. I'm finding that my own personal experiences/opinions on most things apply to few others because I'm just weird.
Posted by: Matt | October 22, 2008 at 04:16 PM
Gina,
After reading the section you posted from *The Weekly Standard*, I'm pretty sure that girls will soon follow in the boys steps and stop reading out of sheer self-defense and boredom.
Oh Brother.
Posted by: Kim Moreland | October 22, 2008 at 04:56 PM
Gina,
They love what is evil and hate what is good, and want to make sure that their students students will do so as well, in order that they might change society and thus receive the approval of society.
Boys need books about King Arthur and his knights, Robin Hood and his merry men, Davy Crockett, Dan'l Boone, Chingatchgook and the Long Carabeen(ph), Frodo and Sam, Danny Dunn, Encyclopedia Brown, Sherlock Holmes and Watson, Robinson Crusoe and Friday (the original), Alan Quatermain and the rest.
But those books aren't Politically Correct and the self-appointed Political Officers in English departments think that the only possible cure for the y chromosome is conditioned feminization.
Posted by: labrialumn | October 22, 2008 at 07:15 PM
I wonder if someone could do a unit on "pulp classics" looking at it from a history angle? Imagine Fu Manchu (which could also include a healthy discussion of racism), Flash Gordon, Curse of Capistrano, the Phantom... Not sure if it would be a "good" unit, but I would've appreciated it back then, mixed in with all the dreary literature.
Posted by: Luke | October 23, 2008 at 08:25 AM