This past Sunday’s Book Review section in the New York Times has an article discussing how boys aren’t reading as much as girls. Presently, there’s a “golden age” of Young Adult, where a wide array of excellently written young adult fiction is being published. If this is the case, then why aren’t boys reading these books or reading more in general?
One such theory: On his Web site, guysread.com, the teacher and author Jon Scieszka writes that boys “don’t feel comfortable exploring the emotions and feelings found in fiction... Boys don’t have enough positive male role models for literacy. Because the majority of adults involved in kids’ reading are women, boys might not see reading as a masculine activity.”
Also: “But the next spate of Y.A. fiction tended to be simplistic problem novels that read like after-school specials, and soon split along gender lines. Books with story lines about disease, divorce, death and dysfunction sold better for girls than did similar books for boys. The shift seemed to fundamentally alter the Y.A. landscape."
From my point of view, I see Young Adult books being marketed solely for girls. Almost every Young Adult book I’ve read or seen has a female protagonist and/or has some sort of love triangle where the girl must choose between two boys. Right off the bat Twilight comes to mind. And because of the massive popularity and explosive sales of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series, many books with this same appeal or with comparable story lines have followed. Now, of course there are Young Adult books published with the young male reader in mind, but can anyone tell me if any of these books or series of books that have been as popular as Twilight? Even though I haven’t read them, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books come to mind, as well as Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series. But weren’t these books originally written for more middle grade than young adult?
What if Suzanne Collins didn’t have the female protagonist of Katniss in The Hunger Games? What if there was a male protagonist instead like Peeta or Gale who were the central characters? What if both boys teamed up in the games just like Katniss did with Peeta? If Collins had written The Hunger Games trilogy with a male audience in mind, would it have been as popular? And if so, would there be a rise in young adult fiction for boys in the same vein as The Hunger Games?
And then another thing that had me thinking about the young adult male audience is because of this picture created where people on Twitter played a game asking if Katniss had died, how would The Hunger Games Trilogy have ended? The hastag for this was #tokillamockingjay. (I found this hastag disturbing, but that's for another post.)
What if The Collins wrote The Hunger Games as a GLBT Young Adult where Peeta and Gale were the romantic leads? Would it still have sold well and would it have been made into a movie? And would boys have read it as well as girls?
Just some musings from the mind of KB...
10 comments:
I hadn't heard of The Hunger Games until yesterday when a fifth grade teacher told me she was concerned that so many of her students were reading it because it was so violent. What's your take? What age range do you think it's appropriate for?
I agree with you that more YA novels are geared towards girls, think of The Gossip Girl, Pretty Little Liars, and The Lying Game for starters. Also a large number of writers for YA are women as well, particularly romance writers who have moved into YA. While there are some male authors like Scott Westerfeld and James Patterson who write YA, there don't seem to be that many men. Although John Grisham just started writing YA. But I agree that most boys won't read a book that has a girl protagonist. Perhaps that is a market that remains untapped, a good YA novel with a male protagonist. Stephanie Meyer had one point had written Twilight from Edward's POV but it got leaked on line.
serenbellbooks--I was one of the adults salivating at the "Hunger Games". It deals with some very heavy issues, and if your child wants to read it, I would encourage you to read it with them as well and discuss it. To me, 5th grade is a little young, but kids these days are more worldly than we were. And it depends on the child. If the child is sensitive, then I would wait to have them read it, but if this child is into all kinds of fantasy and horror, then I'd let him/her try it.
I think Scieszka is right. Remember Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan character? My dad loved reading that series. Remember Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt? Those characters were heroes, bigger than life, and paragons of male-ness. They didn't gush, but got the job done. In all of the YA I've been reading lately, there hasn't been a male protagonist that can be compared to these guys. The book "13 Reasons Why" by Jay Asher has a guy lead, but this guy doesn't get to be a hero. He just got caught up in a very serious situation and has to learn to live with the consequences. I don't want to diminish the importance of the content of "13 Reasons", but I would love to read an action-adventure YA where a young man gets to save the world without a lot of gushy internal dialogue. I think we're doing young men a disservice by not having literature where the guys get to be fiction heroes like Jack Ryan or Dirk Pitt.
*****Spoiler*******
I didn't like Katniss at the end. She fell flat, and I was disappointed with how she chose inaction at a few points.
Serenabellbooks: I found The Hunger Games to be very violent, especially when it dealt with children being impaled and eaten alive by mechanical animals.
As for age, I would say middle school and up. Overall, The Hunger Games is a very well written book that really hits you heard. Catching Fire is okay but comes across contrived with a been there, done that feel, I haven't read Mockingjay.
Elizabeth: Do we really need a POV from Edward? Even if she had published a book with Edward's POV boys wouldn't read it because the Twilight series is for girls.
Amanda: I think I may be the only one who couldn't finish 13 Reasons Why. I had major issue with the girl who killed herself.
I think you touch on something that, to me, is a bigger problem than all the books being written "for girls." Those books appeal to a female audience for sure, but they certainly can be read by a male audience. YA has never said no to a "guy book", so it's not like it's discrimination or anything.
The issue is the marketing. Every book - even if it would appeal to guys and should appeal to guys - is marketed towards the Twilight craze. At least, all the books published recently. Hunger Games has hopefully started a trend of slightly more gender-neutral covers. Just looking at Divergent gives me hope for that one.
There's also the fact that parents need to show their male kids reading is okay and that they don't NEED a guy protagonist. Honestly, I understand that we want them to read, but as a guy who already does read a lot...it's just unnecessarily catering to them by telling them it's perfectly okay to always be close minded about who you read a story about.
That's just my opinion, though. I get that people want to read a story about someone like them, but the extremity that people allow guys to take to that is ridiculous. Especially when there are LGBTQ or PoC people that have an even harder time finding protagonists that relate to them on a more superficial level.
I think the popularity of "guy" authors like Scott Westerfeld is a help, too. I'm hoping Westerfeld gets something that gets the boom that the Hunger Games does. His books are great and would attract reluctant male readers even with the occasional female protagonist.
I did a series of posts for boys and reading at my YA blog. Here's the start:
30 Book Series for Boys You Shouldn’t Miss, Part 1
http://www.literatureyoungadultfiction.com/30-book-series-for-boys-you-shouldn%e2%80%99t-miss-part-1/
All the books were recommended by guys so it's a pretty good list.
I agree with John The Bookworm: stop catering to the idea that boys can't/won't read books written by or about women. It smacks very much of the mindset that has teachers paying more attention to boys in the classroom because the girls are better students. Stop blaming the girls.
Suzanne Collins wrote a boy-centric series, Gregor the Overlander, which was terrific. Chris Cruther's books are by and about a guy. Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence is probably one of the best series ever written for young readers. The possibilities are endless, no matter who writes the books. If boys aren't willing to read them, that's on them. If parents and teachers can't or won't make the case for good books in general, so be it.
My sisters kids (all boys) love to read and will read anything we recommend. They will also read any series, regardless of the sex of the writer. It's about setting examples and making books available.
Sorry for the rant. I've just had it with excuses for why boys don't read. Stop blaming the books.
Oops, that's Chris Crutcher.
IF we want boys to read more, having more male leads is important. Although girls can easily identify with boy characters, the reverse is not true. Just as black girls can identify with white Barbie, but white girls cannot identify with black Barbie. AND even if there are many good books for boys to read, the BELIEF among those uneducated on the matters is that there are not. It doesn't matter if that isn't the reality. If boys THINK books are more frequently geared towards girls, they won't bother to learn any different. And of course, if girls are the bigger readers (which makes sense just because boys have higher energy levels so a more passive activity is not as compatible... also they are more visual, which books are... not), the books are more likely to target girls and MARKET to girls. Boy or girl, we should try and add some of the artistic and cognitive aspects found in books to things that appeal to the more active and visually-oriented children.
Interesting discussion. I do not read YA, but I've been around the genre enough to agree that it is marketed towards girls. And although the "what ifs" are interesting, at this point, I don't think one can easily erase the perception and fact that YA is female-focused. It would have to take a mega-author to break the mold and be successful because boys aren't reading as much fiction. There are series books - like Star Wars, that are enjoyed. Also, comic books, graphic novels and manga are still popular. Reading is reading, right?
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