On her book tour for Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, the feminist story collection and Kickstarter phenomenon she co-wrote with Elena Favilli, Francesca Cavallo repeatedly got the same question from audience members: “What about the boys?” She found the question annoying at first. After all, haven’t most books throughout history featured boys and men and their heroics?, she recalled thinking. Over time, though, she began to hear the question differently. “I realized that many parents wanted to raise their boys with a different idea of what it means to be a man than the one they had grown up with. And they looked around and couldn’t find much,” she said.
Citing research on everything from academic performance to mental health, dropout statistics, and incarceration rates, she and the other panelists of “Where the Boys Are: The Right Books Can Make Them Heroes” at the Bologna Book Fair discussed the role publishers can play in addressing the troubling trends increasingly reported among boys and young men.
Moderator Porter Anderson, editor in chief of Publishing Perspectives, said he developed the idea for the panel after receiving a press release from the Carnegie Medal committee. There were nine books centered on boy characters on the longlist for the medal. “It was so striking,” he said, especially since there has long been an assumption both in publishing and education that “boys don’t read.” That’s an oversimplification that deserves closer scrutiny, he added.
While researching How to Raise a Reader, the book she co-wrote with Pamela Paul, panelist Maria Russo (an editor at large at Union Square & Co.) said she encountered research indicating that there may be biological reasons boys don’t read at the same time and same rate as girls. Boys absorb information more visually at first, she said, adding that they can be slower to process text as early readers. Even though science supports the idea that combining text and pictures helps cement ideas in the brain, the U.S. education system has traditionally taught reading as a progression from pictures to text, she continued. “From the very beginning of their lives as readers, boys are behind and feeling like they’re not succeeding,” she said. “This is often where behavior problems start.” A strong advocate for “keeping picture books in children’s lives longer—forever—or at least until middle school,” she said that allowing kids to choose graphic novels is essential for promoting reading, and she is starting to see more encouraging attitudes from teachers about the value of graphic novels and comics.
Format is not the only barrier to reading for boys. “We are of the mindset that most books are read by women,” said Michiel Kolman, senior VP of Elsevier and chair of the Inclusive Publishing and Literacy Committee of the International Publishers Association. He cited data that the publishing industry is also 75% female. At the same time, he posited that “better boys and men are crucial for a society where women can thrive,” and books that engage boys can contribute to that outcome. “We don’t want to lose one woman in publishing,” Anderson interjected. “But maybe there need to be more guys inside the buildings.”
While editing She Can STEM: 50 Trailblazing Women in Science from Ancient History to Today, panelist Jonathan Simcosky of Quarto’s Quarry imprint found ample research indicating that STEM initiatives “have had a powerful impact in shifting the data” on women entering STEM fields. At the same time, he discovered, there’s been a “startling” decline in men entering “helping” professions such as social work, elementary education, and psychology. “What if we did something similar for boys?” he proposed. He acquired Yes, Boys Can!—He Can H.E.A.L.: Inspiring Stories of Men Who Changed the World by Jonathan Juravich and Richard Reeve, author of the acclaimed adult nonfiction book Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It. The acronym in the book’s title stands for health, education, the arts, and literacy. The book features stories of men who have “made sacrifices and cared for their communities,” Simcosky said, providing role models for boys who may not have considered professions that have come to be seen as the domains of women. “Books can offer a way for boys to see themselves beyond the archetypes of “champion, warrior, or superhero,” he said.
These kinds of limited roles seen in stories have contributed to many of the negative outcomes we’re now seeing with boys and men, said Cavallo, such as an epidemic of mental health issues, underachievement in school, and socialization problems. She spent two years researching traditional fairy tales with the aim of identifying the ways they perpetuate gender stereotypes. “For every girl who learns she must marry a prince, there is a prince who exists only to save the princess. We know nothing of the inner life of male characters,” she said. For boys in cultures around the world, she continued, traditional rites of passage often involve completing a task that demonstrates his virility. When he gains status, he lives in fear that he will lose it. Her research led her to write Stellar Stories for Boys of the Future, a collection of stories set outside of our world.
Cavallo pointed out that new narratives for boys should not be just about “the absence of elements we consider toxic, but the presence of meaning.” She continued, “This isn’t about condemning masculinity, it’s about reclaiming it as a space full of love, compassion, care, and even honor. This is the kind of work we should do collectively.” Reimagining limited gender roles is “a journey of mutual liberation,” she concluded.
“The data’s clear that boys are struggling and looking for new stories—any story, really—to help them understand their masculinity. If publishers continue to dismiss this half of the market as ‘non-readers,’ others will fill that void to everyone’s peril,” Simcosky said.
Kolman expressed confidence that books have a role to play in helping boys on multiple fronts. “As publishers, we are catalysts for change,” he said.
