Boys (Don’t) Read

Boy ReadingThe other day, one of my students made a special trip to my classroom to give me a folded newspaper clipping. He asked me if I had read the paper — and as I’m remembering it, I can’t recall the day he asked about — and I hadn’t, so he shyly handed me the article. If you have never been a teacher, you probably don’t realize how touching such a gesture is. It says that the student was thinking about me and thought something would interest me. It says also that it interested him, and he wanted me to know it. I can’t find the article at the AJC’s website, but I did find it here.

The gist of the article is nothing new to educators. Boys need to be enticed to read more than girls. If you are looking for good guy books, try Jon Scieszka’s site Guys Read. I told the boy who gave me the article that I think he will like our next novel — The Catcher in the Rye. A more quintessentially guy book would be hard to find. I think it will be fun to read with that class, which is predominantly male.

Image via BBC.

2 thoughts on “Boys (Don’t) Read”

  1. This is so true — girls will read 'boy books,' but boys won't read 'girl books.' Do you know of any places that list 'boy books' for high school readers? I teach remedial seniors and bright freshmen — all classes mostly male. This is great fun, but it's hard to find things for them to read that are on the appropriate levels and appeal to them.

  2. Thanks for the link…looks good. Yes, the little things they hand to us are the most precious…

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