What do you do when there is a scarcity of wholesome adventure books for boys in the 8-to-14 age range, written by male authors, on the shelves of today’s bookstores? I am a dad who reads a chapter of one or more books to my two boys at least once a day. Much more often than that, they read other books on their own.We would like to read books that are boy-centred, written by male authors. But I am disillusioned to say the least.
To illustrate my point, I happen to be writing this on November 18, 2010, but take a day of your choice to do a similar survey. I am looking at the current 50 bestsellers on Amazon.com in the books for children category.
Granted, of the 50 bestsellers, there are a total of 13 books for boys and girls in the 4-to-8 age range. These include classics such as those by Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein. No arguments there, but my boys are 10 and almost 8 years old, and have outgrown that material except when we read it for the sake of nostalgia.
Of the remaining 37 titles in our survey of today's top-50 bestselling childrens' books on Amazon, those in the fantasy/mythology (including the Hunger Games, Percy Jackson and Harry Potter series) or horror categories amount to 20. What are those parents, families and children like us to do if we don’t care for violence, monsters, vampires, magic or Greek mythology?
Well, we still have 17 of Amazon’s 50 bestselling titles to examine. Okay, but more than half of them (9 altogether) are girl-centred and almost exclusively written by female authors.
Picky, picky some people might say. Surely you can find something to enjoy of the remaining 8 titles? Uh, not likely. Five of them are in the Wimpy Kid series(mildly entertaining, but frankly we’re not looking for a comic book, which is too hard to read aloud anyway), two of them are biographies of teeny celebrities, and the last one is Obama’s Letter to My Daughters. Yikes.
So I say to myself: okay, conservative, family-centred, homeschooling dad, why don’t you go to the library? Surely the public library will have some mystery and adventure books of interest to you and your boys. Especially for your favourite time of day, reading to them at bedtime.
Well, okay, let's give the library a try. May as well start locally (I live in a city of 30,000 people). Rather than make a trip out, I will start on the Orillia Public Library web catalogue. A search of the subject category “juvenile fiction” indicates that there are 7695 titles. An online statistical calculator tells me that a random sample of 95 of those 7695 titles would yield results accurate within 10% with 95% confidence. Good enough for my purposes. Let's take every 84th book in the Orillia Public Library catalogue on November 18, 2010, starting with the 40th title.
Reminding myself of what I am looking for—simply a work of fiction for young readers which is boy-centred by a male author—I begin reviewing the offering of the juvenile fiction department of the Orillia Public Library. Using the above methodology, I randomly sample 95 titles and meticulously examine their bibliographic details on various library, author, publisher and retail websites.
Okay, I have gathered this random sample of the library catalogue by way of my desktop computer. Let’s take a look at the results. Hmm, not a good start. Almost half the books (46, with 28 of those by female authors no less) are in the newborn to 8-year-old age range. These are of no interest for the present purpose. But there are still 49 books to go in this search, so I am hopeful.
And of those remaining 49? Well, it turns out that more than half (25) of them are girl-centred and by female authors. Grr. Man, I am glad to be sitting at my desk and not having made a trip to the library on this cold November day. Let’s soldier onward, though, we still have 24 books of the original 95 to examine.
Note to librarians everywhere: I think it is important, not essential, but important, for boys to read books written from a male’s perspective (item: of this representative sample, 74% of the books are by female authors). How many of those remaining 24 books qualify? You’re kidding, a full 17 of those are written by females? Let’s see, that leaves only 7 books of the original 95 on this sample bookshelf.
I started this business, so I’m going to see it through to the end. Come on, Orillia Public Library, please don’t let me down. What have you got among those remaining 7 titles? Egad, two of them are girl-centred. Oh no, I’m down to five now. And 3 of those deal with monsters or fantasy. My goodness, what does that leave—only two books?
But, Heavens to Betsy, those two books are by male authors and boy-centred. Hallelujah! Mind you, I’m overlooking the fact that one of this lonely pair is told from the perspective of a horse, otherwise I’d be worse off in the public library than at Amazon.
Where is all this leading? Let me offer a parallel from my life's experience. One of my hobbies is railway modelling, particularly as it pertains to the steam locomotive era in my home province of Ontario, Canada. For years I waited in vain for someone to write a book which covered what I wanted—a portrayal of the nuts-and-bolts aspects of railway operations around my hometown of Allandale (Barrie), Ontario in the 1950s. With living memories slipping away, I decided in 1997 to write that book myself—the book which I had wished someone else would write. I kept that up for 13 years in fact (and may someday continue), writing and publishing nine hardcover volumes in the series.
But things other than railways and scale models have drawn most of my attention in recent years. I have been restless for a long while, as my boys have grown, for someone to write the books the three of us want to read. We don't ask for much--just wholesome adventure or mystery stories with nothing weird like monsters, fairies, vampires or magic. Books that the average boy and dad can relate to, and be entertained by. For years, I have sought out and purchased (never borrowed from libraries, because they are not there any more) copies of books for boys published 50 and more years ago. Among others, we have enjoyed reading the original Hardy Boys series, Stephen Meader’s adventure books for boys, the Mel Martin baseball stories written by John R. Cooper, and Canadian authors Jack Hambleton and Jack O’Brien, both of whom wrote boys’ outdoor adventure books set in our country.
Alas, the list of yesteryear's classic titles for boys is only so long. As the sampling of books at Amazon and the local library reveal, there may not be a lot coming our way in the present or near future. I am not encouraged by the fact that the educational system has let boys down for decades.
So, in the same spirit of writing the first of my nine railway books back in 1997, I have applied myself to the field of childrens’ literature. The Secret of the Old Swing Bridge is for boys, parents and relatives of boys, teachers of boys, and anyone who has even been a boy. It is written by a home-schooling, self-employed father of two boys who enjoy a range of interests. Girls, I am not neglecting you; the second of the two main characters in the novel is a 13-year-old girl. I am not going head-to-head with the Jeff Kinneys, Rick Riordans and J. K. Rowlings of the world. But if you are in the disgruntled group who believes that the number of fiction books for boys published in recent years is insufficient, or if you enjoy a gripping tale, I invite you to read an excerpt from The Secret of the Old Swing Bridge. The book will be released around December 1.
And, librarians, in any public library in North America: if you can demonstrate to me that even 5% of your juvenile fiction department titles are boy-centred and written by male authors for young readers (using statistical methods outlined above), then an autographed copy of The Secret of the Old Swing Bridge will be on its way to you with my compliments.
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