Funny, but boys do read

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY
Wed Jul 6, 7:24 AM ET

So how do you get all those boys to love reading?

For starters, you make them laugh.

Better yet, get a bunch of milk - 2%, and lots of it - and as they laugh it'll spew from their noses, run down their faces, their shirts and ...

What, you're grossed out?

That's the point. If you're a boy and you're still reading, that's a start.

Whatever the reason, boys don't seem to read as much as - or as well as - girls. Even when they're young, girls read more proficiently, recent national figures show. The problem gets worse as kids get older.

Hoping to "make some noise for boys," popular children's author Jon Scieszka in 2002 began asking teachers, librarians and others to suggest titles of books that "boys really like."

His non-profit literacy initiative began posting them to the quirky GUYS READ Web site (www.guysread.com). Now Scieszka, co-creator of The Stinky Cheese Manand Other Fairly Stupid Tales, has collected 91 humorous stories and illustrations by male authors in a new book, Guys Write for GUYS READ. Book profits benefit the Web site.

A former elementary school teacher, Scieszka, 50, has written 23 books.

Q: Jon, you say being a father and a teacher taught you that boys and girls aren't the same, that we must do more to access "the male brain." How?

A: The first thing we can do, and it's relatively easy to do, is expand that notion of what reading is. It's not just literary fiction. ... (Boys) like non-fiction, action-adventure, humor - science fiction has really come a long way - graphic novels, visual kinds of things.

Q: You say, "You can be literate in different ways." But aren't many teachers suspicious of magazines, comic books and the like?

A: In school, that's not really seen as the Holy Grail of reading. That's more often stuff like Charlotte's Web. "Now, that's reading" - That's the message boys get, and I think they are going, "Well, if that's reading, I'm not too crazy about it."

Q: Your son had to read Little House on the Prairie in elementary school and hated it. Are we handicapping boys by giving them inappropriate books?

A: That's what turned my son off as a younger reader and even in high school. ... The reluctant readers are so overwhelmed by the really serious books. I swear my son will never pick up Sula - if he even hears the words "Toni Morrison," he'll run out of the room. ... I think that scared him off all kinds of reading.

Q: But how do we ultimately get boys to read Toni Morrison?

A: If we start someplace and say, "It's OK to read Captain Underpants, read Lemony Snicket, read Roald Dahl," I honestly think boys move on their own, and then they'll move to that stuff.

Q: The pieces in Guys Write (most were written for the collection) are really diverse. What were your instructions to the authors?

A: I just asked them, "What's your memory of being a guy?" or "What do you think about being a guy?" I left it that open. I just told them, "Make it short."

Q: They're also very funny.

A: There's something about boys and humor, and that stuff never gets recommended, for the most part, in schools. I can't think of a funny book that my kids ever had to read in school. But I grew up on that stuff.

Q: What has the response been so far to the book?

A: It's been really fun to go out and speak to teachers and librarians. I was a little freaked out at first, thinking, "I'm going to get burned at the stake here. I'm speaking to audiences that are 90% women. Men are making 1½ times what they earn, and I'm telling them that boys are in trouble?"

But you know what? They are so good about listening and going, "Oh yeah, my son is like that, my husband is like that - my father's like that." ... That's why boys are different."