Britain’s lost boys Sonia Sodha

Are they aimed specifically at boys? If so its a very stereotypical view of what boys want to read.
IMO its more about keeping to very staid groups of books that enforce what literature and reading should be.

No, of course they won't, but the fact that I could come up with three famous long series off the top of my head in about 2 seconds doesn't suggest that the problem is really the lack of reading material aimed at boys. There's a huge range of great children's literature out there at the moment and a tonne of non-fiction too.

Just like I said, GCSE English classes have been centred around books aimed specifically at boys for decades and they're still woefully underperforming in English compared to girls despite the girls having to wade through books that are not aimed at them.

I haven't said that the boys have read those entire series, you have made that up.
I'm saying that those three series are not going to appeal to all boys, in the same way that the boys material that you mention in your other post will not attract all boys.

There are lots of books for boys. Mine were reading Percy Jackson, The Dead series, books by Dan Smith, Alan Grantz and Steve Backshall. Then they read Stephen King and James Herbert and some biographies of footballers and Ferrari and lots of books by ex gang members, ex MI5 and police snipers. I could go on.
As well as all the literacy and educational benefits, reading books also develops focus and empathy. Something which is quite lacking now that people are online more.

You were saying that there is very little reading material aimed at boys and now you're suggesting that the real problem is that they managed to read all of those long series but couldn't possibly contemplate The Hunger Games because the lead is female so stop reading after that?

I haven't heard of holes but the rest of these are a dirge for most boys as well.

That's three, the problem is solved.

Girls have been subjected to Holes, Of Mice and Men and war poetry in English since forever in efforts to try to engage boys with male protagonists.

I was soaking up Stephen King when I was a teenager as were most of my friends. Why wouldn't those books work for boys?

Eh? What about Percy Jackson or Alex Rider or Artemis Fowl?

I agree that there is little reading material aimed at boys, but even military, sci fi and high fantasy is mainly female protagonists.

I think there's a major problem with a lack of books that boys enjoy. Once they've done Harry Potter, there just isn't much being published that might appeal to them.

There are some male-coded genres - stuff like military sci-fi or high fantasy - that still sell, but a boy who isn't into that really has nowhere to go. What's promoted as YA fiction is just too female.

There's a big underserved market for the kind of adventure stories that boys used to read. There are tons of old books that could be republished, or if they're too old-fashioned or they've become politically tricky, there are writers who can do new books in the same style.

Women run the publishing industry, by and large. I think there's a genuine blind spot there. And an opportunity for anyone who wants to take it.

If boys aren't reading, the way to deal with that is to give them something they enjoy reading. Boys who don't have bookworm dads are unlikely to discover that.

I knew someone who is sad about the disappearance of snooker clubs.

Isn't part of the issue with boys from working class backgrounds is a lack of opportunity? A lack of free and discounted council facilities such as youth centres, libraries, organised sporting clubs/events means that teens don't have anywhere to socialise and participate with others?

Anecdotally, I have a autistic, gaming teen boy at home, but he also participates in martial arts and a theatre group, goes out with his autistic friends occasionally and I encourage him to socialise and get involved (doesn't always work, of course). However, we are middle class with the means to give him that opportunity. It is a pretty similar pattern within his autistic friendship group.

Ironically I actually find his wife Tammy much more sexist. Both were v ill a few years back, I can see how this might well focus someone on family, community & religion, ofc those are good things! But she is v dogmatic that women who want to work are betraying their femininity. Otoh she's a massage therapist, writer, speaker & podcaster...

Like a lot of Phyllis Schlafly types,...they criticise working women harshly but seem fine w conservative women working as long as their job promotes conservative values.

I don't want to derail but I just wanted to post a bit from Peterson's interview w Cathy Newman. He says he supports women who want to climb to the top of a profession & gives assertiveness training to help them increase their salaries. Some may disagree w other stuff he says in the interview & w the causes for unequal pay- tho I think some studies do support the assertiveness theory- but those seem positive in that he diesn't want women to be confined to domesticity if they want a career.

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180123010516/www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/putting-monsterpaint-onjordan-peterson/550859" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20180123010516/www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/01/putting-monsterpaint-onjordan-peterson/550859/

Yes, that's what I'm saying. Males used to have this automatic higher status. Most visible high status people are still male. (Politicians, sports people, business leaders).

So men still have the vestige of that expectation that they are higher status than women.

But girls outperform boys at school, and increasingly in many workplaces. Boys and men see lots of work towards equity for women and perceive it as anti male discrimination.

I don't know where I "made it sound" like they wanted to be part of a girl gang.
Certainly didn't mean to suggest that. Yes they want/wanted us for sex but probably for more.

Generalising, but I can think of the type of "boys" that would want to hang around with you and your "galmates".
And the reasons don't put you or the "boys" in a good light.

Exactly. The problem is when the woman ends up doing all the housework whilst the man games. The risk of that puts me off dating a gamer, even though I occasionally game myself.

@selffellatingouroborosofhate hobbies are for down time. Time for relaxing and enjoying an activity around all your work and chores. They shouldn't be the main focus in your life, they should complement your life.
How many boys prioritise gaming over everything else? There's no time to do anything else.
It starts very young when so many young primary school kids get hooked on Roblox then Fortnite. Some kids, mainly boys, are spending several hours a day after school gaming and then pretty much all weekend.
Then at secondary school, it's the gaming and the phone.
They can't fit in anything else and everything else has lost its appeal by this stage.
Something is very wrong.

Yeah, wait until he gets older and starts seeing women gyrating against men in music videos and men running most of the world's countries on the news. And starts playing games like GTA where you can score points by running prostituted women over with your car.

Plus, a lot of these "incels" game heavily. I don't think that they understand that women are turned off like a stopcock by a man who wastes excessive time on any hobby, and especially a hobby like gaming where there's little or no possible application of the hobby-specific skills to real life.

Yeah.

I used to tutor struggling readers. Comics were such a frustration to me.

They are fine for fun but they are not language rich. There just aren't enough words for a student to really get practice reading, which is what they need. and the vocabulary is usually fairly low level.

Kids that mainly read that kind of thing just don't improve.

Iam not sure about this. I don't think young men and boys have had much of a message that they are supposed to be higher in the hierarchy somehow.

My son has said things to me a few times that tell me the message he's received from pop culture is that boys aren't very smart and girls should be in charge.