It seems to me much of this stems from a lack of confidence in boys (and men) today. I could write a dozen posts about why I think this is true. But I digress…

I’m suddenly reminded of a soap commercial years ago featuring a popular football player *I think* showering with a poof. I thought it was great! (I’ve been looking for it on YouTube without success.) Still, it’s a shame not only that what was featured was out of the ordinary, but that the advertisers knew it was necessary to pitch their product that way for men to believe it was “okay” to use a poof (because this macho athlete uses one!) since they knew most men lacked the confidence to decide it was okay to use one on their own.

“Girls benefit from being forced to read boy protagonist books in school. It broadens our perspective. We ask too little of boys.”

I fully agree with her. For some reason we (as a culture) are okay with boys who would reject reading a book because there is pink and glitter on the cover. And that is such a failure on our part.

I mean, could you imagine if a girl proclaimed she refuses to read this version of CATCHER IN THE RYE because the horse on the cover is too ugly or scary?
http://catchingsalinger.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/the-catcher-in-the-rye-cover.jpg

How about if she refused to read Percy Jackson’s LIGHTNING THIEF because the cover was blue? And if she refused to read a book because it’s about “boy stuff” her own mother would probably take her to task.

So why the double standard?

Marketing shoots for the girl market because women buy more books than men anyway, across the board and regardless of age. I think the last stat I read was somewhere in the 80% range… where 80% of books purchased are purchased by women.

But marketing aside, why aren’t we teaching our boys to be strong enough to pick up a book with a girl on the cover and not feel a deep gashing wound to their soul? I don’t get it.

Admittedly, I’m old enough to remember the time before YA, when my Jr. High self was given the option to read either Sweet Valley High or Anne of Green Gables to find stories about kids my age or a little older. I despised both of those series, so ended up reading Agatha Christie novels and Anne Rice to avoid the onslaught.

But you know what? I spent most of my high school and college career reading books written by and about old white guys, and it didn’t kill me or destroy my femininity.

I write books with strong women/girls in them. And I write books with love stories. And if a boy avoids my books because of those two things–or worse, because there’s a picture of a strong woman on the cover–his loss. I’m not going to retool my storylines or ask my publisher to rework a cover design to appeal to a culturally skewed ideal of what a boy is supposed to like. Because the truth is that the best men in my life are attracted to strong women and fall in love with their whole hearts. Those are the boys I write for.

On a side note, I tell all the teen boys I know that reading girl books really is the best way to figure out what girls want. With that perspective in their heads, most boys will carry around their pink covered tomes with pride. ;)

@JennW Thanks Jennifer. I have a 10-year-old boy who may be venturing into YA in a few years. If you come across any good “boy” titles {there’s that word again!} let me know.

@Kaitlin I agree completely. It’s amazing how much the cover suggests about the story inside. I also wonder how much publishers consider the reader after they leave the story. If I was reading a book with a racy cover, I would be very self-conscious about carrying it around for others to see.

@Dawn Thanks Dawn! And thanks for your post which got me thinking more about this. Regarding e-books, I use a Sony Reader and you’re absolutely right about how that neutralizes the book. With it, I’m left with just the words as the author intended.

@Anna I think you nailed it when you used the word ‘photograph’. I think that’s one of the things really bothering me about the covers of so many YA titles and explains the difference in intensity between the HP book cover and the HP movie cover. A story is an imaginary tale about people who don’t really exist, but a photograph is a real person (in this case a model.) An important element of the fictional nature of these stories is lost when “real” people are depicted on the covers rather than imaginary ones.

@Kate LOL

I’ve been kicking this post around for nearly two weeks while I struggled with the whole “boy/girl” book language. Obviously boys and girls are different, but I don’t go in for gender stereotypes as such, and I didn’t want this to come across that way either. In fact, my wife and I agree on this so much we chose not to learn the sex of any of our children before they were born so our families and friends would be more intentional about gender-neutral gift-giving. We ended up with lots of yellows and greens. :)

Also, as a teen, I would not have been caught dead holding a book with a pink cover. I was that kind of snob.

But nerdfighters proudly feature both guys and girls. Hmm.

Great post!

Maybe it is something publishers might want to consider, especially if a book should have appeal to both genders.

I would love to see more books catering to the boy audience. Maybe that will change in the future.