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Friday, March 24, 2006

Books & Boys

One of the ways in which I completely romanticize my childhood is through the books I read and loved and remember so vividly still.

Of course this powerful sentiment is even sweeter because it is impossible for me to taint my young reading life with my jaundiced grown-up eyes. It is easy for me to contemplate so many incidents and think that I must have been one annoying kid, but the books were always bliss.

And because these memories are so fine and it is so pleasing to spread pleasure around, I think about what books my kid will read one day. (And of course I've already talked about his cinematic education, which I plot almost daily.)

Such plans are bound to end in tears, mine I suspect. Everyone cautions mothers of boys that boys develop more slowly, don’t talk as early, don't read so soon, can be clingy, are slow to potty train. And once they do know how to read, they'd rather not. This is a drag for someone who loves fobbing text off on people. (My husband is used to my sticking books and articles on his nightstand. My father has become actively competitive with his book recommendations so that by the time I suggest he read the sequel to something I gave him a week ago, he will already have acquired every book the writer has even poked at- including young adult novellas and the complete series of comic books the writer dabbled in.) It would be most sad if reading became a struggle.

But there is hope. Emily Bazelon wrote a really interesting piece for Slate about boys and books in which she suggests that boys are just being misdirected. Their brains tend to like different material than what they are usually offered, what we think they will like, what we think they want. Boys apparently like procedure, instructions and diagrams in their stories- which is why Bazelon is so pleased to see that Little House in the Big Woods is recommended for boys- so many descriptions of how to survive in the woods, so much discussion of Pa's firearms.

All of this is quite a long way off for me (because, as everyone tells me, boys develop slowly), but it is reassuring to have some resources on hand. Bazelon cites the really great Guys Read web site, and I'm pleased to say I'm already armed with a few books that should appeal to Felix (Richard Scary's Cars that Go and Things that Go and Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad books).

Looming in the future is something quite different. The March 12 New York Times Book Review ran a piece by Naomi Wolf, a writer I don't tend to agree with particularly often, about rather sinister trends in young adult literature for girls. If Wolf's account of these books is at all accurate, these books are to be avoided at all costs if for no other reason than they are so wildly stupid. I think, if I had a daughter, I'd rather have her read anthologies of eternally unfunny Garfield comics than the "Clique" or "Gossip Girl" series, which seem to be mostly engineered to introduce impressionable minds to the joys of brand names and astonishingly lame descriptions of sexual encounters. (This is not to say that teen texts have cornered the market on bad sex. Here you can read about the UK's Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction Award, 2005, and here are the dismal scenes in question.) If you can find Wolf's article, read it and rage.

But this is the eternal problem I suppose. You want them to read, but you want them to read the right things. You want them to eat, but not so much the crap. It is all easy now when everything I hand Felix is fascinating. It will be rather sad when I'll have to become more cunning.

posted by Elise at 5:14 AM

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2 Comments:

Elisheva said...

This is interesting. I think it's a good idea to banish certain forms of literature, but not for the reason one might imagine. My parents were strongly against my reading anything vaguely Harlequinny. They encouraged reading greatly, but censored (to a point) the intake.

Still, I managed to read Harlequin romances on the sly, once in a while. I managed to sneak out books that were considered too mature for me. And the low-grade sneakiness of it pleased me greatly. The first steps toward asserting my independence from my parents. I read the books, thought they were crap, but read them because they were forbidden and it was great.

The pleasure of reading with the flashlight under the duvet, of hiding the books under the mattress, that is a pleasure you can only get if certain things are forbidden. I am thankful that this opportunity was given to me.

3/24/2006 9:13 AM

Left of Center said...

Saw you on CNN this morning. Loved what you had to say. So many people suffering with Affluenza. As a full time dad I can really relate to your message. Keep up the good fight.

3/27/2006 4:59 AM

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