Yes, it's long. But anybody interested in creating a boy character, a boy-preferred novel, or in cultivating boy readers needs to read this post. Seriously good stuff.
Originally written as part of his Vermont College thesis, this is David Elzey's expanded version.
Click this link for his blog.
(This is what happens when I decide to clean out emails, straighten file cabinets, tidy my desktop. I find amazing stuff I might have overlooked. Don't you just love when that happens?)
My rainy Saturday gift to fellow writers. Here's a bit of what he says about boy readers. If this doesn't make you click that link, you may be missing a whole segment of your reading population:
They’ll say they hate books and reading, and the next thing you know they’re driving books like Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid or Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series onto the bestsellers list.
They’ll ask for something exactly like what they just finished reading, a beginning reader series like the Time Warp Trio or Geronimo Stilton, and then quickly lose interest because they’ve discovered and become bored with the formula.
They’ll read a page of grade-level text aloud in a halting stammer, then read the sports section of the newspaper as smoothly as professional television announcers.
The conundrum that is a boy reader is enough to drive any adult mad.
I have 3 grandsons. I just sent the link to my daughter-in-law.
ReplyDeleteI think at the end of the day, boys, like girls, like a good story. I have found that if you can draw them into the story, they will read the book even if the protagonist is a girl (like in the case of Rickshaw Girl, or the Clementine series).
ReplyDeleteBoys, like girls, need variety too. My son likes to read but I noticed he picked entirely different books that I would have chosen for him at the school book fair: Pokemon Black and White, Ripley's Believe It or Not, Guiness Book of World Records, DragonBreath, and 100 Most Dangerous Things in the World.
I think non-fiction, graphic novels really appeal to boys but a good book is a good book. When reluctant boy readers tell me their favorite book, it's all about a great story!