CONCLUSION

Across the fields of yesterday He sometimes comes to me, A little lad just back from play—

The lad I used to be.

—T. S. Jones Jr.,

“Sometimes,” Pocket Book of Quotations¹

I

n the end, we want boys to read. It is such a simple goal, but obviously we find ourselves challenged, frustrated, even thwarted by it. Much works against our success. Boys must overcome challenges from within and obstructions from without to become active readers.

External forces push in on boys, making it harder for them to develop as readers. Peer pressure, social stereotypes, and an aggressive mass media bom- bard the preadolescent boy with discouragements. Men are active, assertive, heedless of consequences, and disparaging of mental activity. Reinforcing these images, boys do not see men read. The people they see in schools and libraries are almost exclusively women.

At the same time, boys face challenges to their becoming readers from within. Boys themselves are active creatures. They are driven by utilitarian concerns. Their wish is to understand the world around them. Their impulse is to take to their heels and go. If something is worth knowing, then it is worth experiencing in person. They see reading as passive, reflective, and girlish.

This leaves boys at a disadvantage in our modern world. Without an active reading life, boys are almost destined to fall behind, and stay behind, in the acquisition and effective use of language. Their ability to pick up new

109

skills and consider new ideas will be irreparably impaired. At the very least, they will miss out, for a lifetime, on the pure joy of losing oneself in a book.

At worst, they will be doomed to go only as far as their muscles can carry them.

This gloomy picture does not have to be. Librarians have the weapon we need to battle aliteracy. We have programming. Programs have long been the tool librarians use to reach out to people, to bring them into our libraries, and to encourage them to read. Unfortunately, our programs have often favored the needs and interests of girls and women over those of boys and men.

To correct this oversight, we must develop programs that recognize the difference between the male and the female views of reading. The first step may well be recognizing that we, as a profession, are predominantly female, and our first thoughts may betray a particularly female point of view. This challenge is not insurmountable because we are not subject to strict deter- minism. Our first thoughts may betray a bias, but we are rational, flexible, and, as a profession, wholly committed to equality of service. We simply need to apply some basic understanding of the way boys operate.

We must welcome challenge and competition into our libraries. If we view competitiveness as a social evil, then we will project to every boy who crosses our paths that a basic component of his psyche is wrong, so he him- self is flawed. If we welcome competition, even integrate it into our pro- grams, boys will feel comfortable, even excited, around books and reading. If we tie reading to competitive activities, then we will intertwine reading into activities that boys love.

We must be accepting of active learning and of active boys. We can show boys that they are welcome by building programs with a physical component.

We can recognize that boys’ minds are engaged when their hands are employed. We need to acknowledge that rules mandating silent, solitary, sedentary conduct all but exclude preadolescent boys. They are also random, based more on past practice than necessity.

We must honor reading preferences that are in conflict with our own. We have to recognize that the books deemed best for libraries and for children’s collections are so designated because of a particularly feminine point of view.

When honoring themes and genres, we prefer interpersonal connections and internal struggles, but these do not speak to boys the way they speak to girls.

Boys prefer the external struggle and the heroic quest. Fantasy, sports, and the epic journey are all routes to the heart and mind of a boy.

We must see that boys have developmental issues that make reading a chore and language an obstacle. Boys develop later, on average, than girls do.

110

Conc lusion

Boys’ reading skills suffer as they struggle with other transitional issues, issues of identity, separation, and social development, in the early elementary years. We need to realize that these transitional issues can put boys so far behind in reading they may never catch up. We can help boys through this struggle by offering recreational reading that they can identify with, and by allowing them to read below their level if that is what it takes to develop good reading habits.

We must recognize that boys long for role models, and that their world is largely devoid of men. If we fail to give boys male role models who read, then they are likely to find their own role models with more destructive habits. We need to be welcoming and encouraging to men, to bring men from the community into the library, in order to defeat the perception that libraries are feminine enclaves, and that reading is for girls.

We can accomplish these objectives by applying the best of traditional librarianship and being open to new ways of doing things. In the end, our libraries may look very different than they have in the past, and if one of the differences is a more equal presence for men and boys, then we will know that we have done well, and a new generation may wonder why boys were ever hard to find in the library.

N OT E

1. Pocket Book of Quotations (New York: Pocket Books, 1952), 21.

Conc lusion

111

Abilock, Debbie. “Sex in the Library: How Gender Differences Should Affect Practices and Programs.” Emergency Librarian(May/June 1997):

17–18.

American Library Association. Access to Library Resources and Services regardless of Gender or Sexual Orientation, 2000, available at http://

www.ala.org/alaorg/oif/acc_gend.html/. Accessed July 22, 2002.

Aronson, Marc. Exploding the Myths: The Truth about Teenagers and Reading.

Lantham, Md.: Scarecrow, 2001.

Ashby, Susan. “Reading Doesn’t Have to Damage Your Street Cred.” Youth Studies Australia 17 (March 1998): 46.

Battle of the Books: Voluntary Reading Incentive Program, available at http://www.battleofthebooks.org/. Accessed August 12, 2002.

Beales, Donna. Knights of the Ring: How to Build an Enthusiastic Junior Friends of the Library Group in Six Weeks . . . and Make It Last.Lowell, Mass.: DLB, 1997.

———. “Lords of the Library.” School Library Journal43 (May 1997): 65.

“Bits & Pieces.” Library Imagination Paper20 (winter 1998): 4.

Boy Scout Requirements, 2002.Irving, Tex.: Boy Scouts of America, 2002.

Butler, Janet. “Making Reading a ‘Guy Thing.’” Reading Today18 (June/July 2001): 20.

Cart, Michael. “What about Boys?” Booklist96 (January 1, 2000 & January 15, 2000): 892.

“Chess Kings: Harlem Kids Score in a Classic Game of Strategy.” Time for Kids5 (January 28, 2000): 7.

Clark, Beverly Lyon, and Margaret R. Higonnet, eds. Girls, Boys, Books, Toys: Gender in Children’s Literature and Culture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Pr., 1999.

113