Britain’s lost boys Sonia Sodha

I think we're oversaturated with dystopian fiction, and YA in general is very prone to following fads. It's also been quite heavy handed with political messaging in recent years.

What I see a lack of in current publishing is what you might call the Thrilling Adventures! kind of stories that boys used to lap up. There are tons of old books in the genre of course, though the likes of Conan or James Bond might not pass muster these days for reasons of sexism and racism. There are a bunch of Indiana Jones novels which might be worth a try.

I'm not thinking of great literature here obviously. I'm thinking of the boy who doesn't read, and isn't enthused by the stodge he gets in English class, but who might be open to reading if he discovers something fun.

There are lots of classics that are also fun, but gotta build up those muscles first.

I've seen that in TV and film writing but haven't come across it in kids books - possibly my kids just missed it or just luck.

Though none of them liked any of the English class books set/read - even if it was new usually YA or often dystopian fiction - and there was a lot of that in teen years via the school.

DD2 and DS did Dracula via e-mail https://draculadaily.substack.com/about which was a hit - and large amount of classics - including sci-fi- have been via audio books for them.

The boys that I have spoken too have said that in the books that they are being offered by schools, the males are stupid, they are useless and are there as comic relief or for the main female protagonist to make fun of instead of being there for the story lines.

We read Clarke's childhood's end at school! Oh, wait a minute, that was the early 70s...

We have 3 boys between us. All readers.

We always had books at home and were avid readers. It’s modelling it that’s important.

I think a lot of the modern media is made to be attention grabbing and easily consumed. That's not really new but seems to dominate the landscape in ways it didn't when I was little. And algorithms push similar content which decreases the range of what people consume.

I watched all sorts of random old stuff with my parents because children's tv wasn't on all the time. Or had to pick up John Wyndham books or Pride and Prejudice or one I remember about Louis XIV off the shelves because I'd run out of stuff to read and mobile phones and consoles and the internet weren't around yet. Showed the kids old doctor who recently. Went down ok but 1970s Columbo was a really big hit.

At school there is also increased use of gamification where children learn using software which is designed to within an inch of its life to produce "learning outcomes".

It certainly is a strange new world and I often feel like a stranger in a strange land. I don't think it's just the boys who are lost.

On a more optimistic note, though they are rougher and less predictable, nature and messy human relationships are complex and comforting. And this forum has unexpectedly become a source of both.

I filled the house with books - way to many of all sorts - and took them to the local liabaries.

Plus like my own parents allowed early teens let or even encouraged them to read adult fiction - everthing from disc world to Agatha Christie to other classics . Also did comics, graphic novels, audio books and at one point found dysleixic book for eldest girl who wanted the older content but still needed easier reading.

I read YA - amongst other genre and have to say it's I think in many instance adult books are less problematic - there's frequently messaging in them on social issues and frankly some dangerous relationship messages.

I think only DD1 had books recommeneded by the school at secondary - the other ones it's all been us at home or very occaionally their mates or suggestions on here or in papers - or see TV show and then read books behind that.

I will say they came to many classics later than I did as their reading skills generally seemed a bit poorer as did their peers - but then DH and I went to differenet primary's but both rememeber doing book reviews all though the later primary years - so reading school books for pleasure then reviewing- and that's not been there in our DC primary schools.

What do you mean by the content, and how boys are portrayed? I agree w a lot of what you said- people are being unnecessarily snippy. We need to hear all views rather than going w easy answers.

I don't have to be "fucking kidding" you at all!
With the exception of Tolken when was the last time you heard of any of those writers put forward/encouraged by a school?
All come under classics which is an almost instant put off for most boys.
Very few modern writers put forward balanced well written male and female characters with growth in their story lines.

I'm picking up surprising implications from some posts:

1. that young people only read fiction.
2. that young people only read YA fiction.
3. that young people only read fiction that is in some way supports the gender stereotypes of their sex.
4. that young people will not read fiction where the main protagonist is not of the same sex as the reader.

There is an entire world of books which are non-fiction, and which cover just about every subject under the sun. When I was about 12 I read a book about the the Kon-Tiki expedition by Thor Heyerdahl. It was a bit challenging for me, but the story was so gripping that I stuck with it - and I gained a lot of new vocabulary, history, ethnography etc., without even noticing
Then there is all that 'old' fiction written by people like the Brontes or Evelyn Waugh or T.H.White or Gaskell or Huxley or Dickens or Steinbeck - there's no reason why young people - even boys! - can't read 'old' books that are not targeted specifically at them.

Maybe broaden the definition of 'books that boys and girls can read' beyond recent ones aimed at a readership that can be categorised by age or sex?

In way two things can both be true - this paper says there are both cognitive differences between the sexes that seem to affect reading and referal bias with dsylexia and boys.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5438271/
It is now clear that we can divide the over-representation of males with dyslexia into two parts: one invalid part explained by referral bias, and one potentially valid residual part found in epidemiological samples (Rutter et al., 2004; Shaywitz, Shaywitz, Fletcher, & Escobar, 1990). The male : female sex ratio in referred samples ranges from about 3:1 to 5:1, whereas the sex ratio in epidemiological samples ranges from 1.5:1 to 3.3:1 (Rutter et al., 2004; Shaywitz et al., 1990), depending in part on the criteria for severity of the reading deficit and minimum-IQ for a diagnosis of dyslexia (Olson, 2002; Quinn & Wagner, 2015).

I found the paper interesting as it links common morbidty of ADHD with dsylexia - both are issue in my family though girls frequently harder to diagonse with ADHD as presnetation differs.

My issue isn't that boys struggle - I accept more boys are at lower end of attainment - it's more but that get's muddled to a more general message of boys struggle with reading or boys don't read - delaying interventions or so engained that it's trotted out about a boy who clearly was reading. The bias becomes enforced an accepted as "truth" so rather than early support to help the back end of boys the lack of progress gets entrenched and becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

All my DC verbal skills were developed early and were very good and had plenty of practice with social skills - they still struggled with reading - there seems to be a mix of hearing issues - partly not hearing sounds clearly and another issue of correcting words written and spoken to their expectations - it's most visble in dialect words form wider family which they just automatically correct to something that makes sense to them.

I've not has any real problems finding books for DS vs my DDs so while I've often seen that touted as a reasons it wasn't an issue for us.

Isn’t this because girls mask though?

My dd was diagnosed ASD and ash’s at 16 and 17 respectively. She’d reached burnout by then.

My lovely sensitive ds raised with no father reads constantly. Is very sociable and friendly. Loads of friends.

Absolutely. No one gave a shit about female representation for decades if not centuries.

You have to be fucking kidding! Asimov, Clarke, Moorcock, Vance, Dick, and Tolkien are giants of sci-fi and fantasy and all have loads of male protagonists. If anything, there's a lack of female characters who aren't love interests, bar Asimov's excellent Susan Calvin who we don't see anything like enough of. I certainly felt underrepresented reading those as a child. Be careful with Moorcock because it can get very dark.

Asimov and Vance did a lot of short stories, which are useful for kids who might struggle with full-length novels. Don't bother with Vance's Demon Princes because it's just same story repeated five times. His other stuff is good.

Lois McMaster Bujold writes stories with a male main character who is disabled. Tom Clancy wrote military fiction, gets a bit samey but The Hunt For Red October is a classic. And of course, Terry Pratchett wrote an entire universe with male and female main characters and plenty of ensemble cast novels. You might want to withhold the books mentioning the Guild of Seamstresses until later teens because it shows prostitution very unrealistically.

Lord of the Flies would count as being aimed at boys. Beyond that... it's not as if they're putting Monster Hunter International on the curriculum.

You said "I agree that there is little reading material aimed at boys"

But now it's the content of the books that are aimed at boys?

What do you think is missing from the market?

Yes, people that want to read will find something to read.

And from discussions that I have had with boys the issue isn't the range of books but the content and how males are portrayed in the books.

What do boys actually want to read in your opinion, that is missing from the market? Because as far as my experience goes, boys who want to read find stuff to read.

I don't think the problem is the lack of literature 'for boys' but boys not actually wanting to read anything.