Getting Boys Into Books (Yet Again)
Submitted by Boys and Schools Blog
If you want to experience an interesting slice of pop culture history, visit the cookbook section of a used book store. It’s like looking at a snapshot of the recent history of diet fads, short-lived celebrity, and health fads–and all in just a few books. Today I found cookbooks from Susan Powter (yes, the really loud diet and exercise woman from the ’90s), Kathy Lee Gifford, and The Sopranos. Not to mention the glut of low-carb books (are we done with the low-carb thing yet?), amusingly positioned right next to the pasta-centric diet books of the late ’80s. I predict that in about 8 years, the entire section will consist solely of Rachel Ray books.
The reason that I was in a used bookstore is because I’m cheap, but I like to read. And I have no objection to digging through stacks of Tom Clancy and John Grisham potboilers to try to find a 50-cent copy of a spy thriller that I will take home and read two chapters of before I realize that I’ve already read this one, and that the CIA agent turns out to be a turncoat. (Note: the CIA agent is almost always the turncoat. If the real word was anything like the political thriller genre, then it would be no wonder that there were problems with our ability to gather intelligence, as the CIA would be too busy betraying people–usually noble and daring military officers who also happen to be dashingly-handsome-in-a-modest-yet-macsuline way–to get anything done at all.)
My, but it’s taking me a long time to get to the point today.
Anyway, the other reason that I was at the used book store is because I like to encourage my boys to read, but I must confess that they can be a tad over-enthusiastic in their enjoyment, leading to ripped covers, missing pages, and so on. I think that when we picture reading to our children, we like to imagine everyone snuggled together on the couch, children listening rapt with attention while Mom or Dad reads from a weathered copy of a beloved childhood favorite. When the reality (Mom succumbs to repeated demands to read a dull picture book about a commercially licensed character, with one child talking over her and identifying the contents of the pictures, while yet another child continually bounces around and fidgets) falls so far from the ideal, it’s easy to get discouraged.
So in my efforts to keep my boys interested in books, I’ve decided that it is in our best interest to strip away some of the mystique of books. Sure, I still make everyone sit still for my nostalgic moment with a childhood classic from time to time, but the real goal is to get the boys to like books. So we make trips to the bookstore to let them pick out things that strike their interest, so that they can get excited about “their” book. (Not to mention that it’s always interesting to see where your little boy’s interest is at the moment. Much to my surprise, my four-year-old decided that today he wanted a book about the solar system and a kids’ cookbook. Though the cookbook had a large picture of a chocolate birthday cake on it, so I’m not exactly mystified about his motivation for picking that one.)
The simple truth of the matter is that in order to get boys interested in books, you need to have books around that they can be interested in. Things like used bookstores, yard sales, library sales, and so on are a great way to accomplish that without a lot of expense. Not only that, but unlike certain large bookstore chains that shall remain nameless, they also don’t feel the need to embellish their children’s section with a gigantic train table featuring Thomas and Friends and the entire Island of Sodor in miniature for children to play with.
This, of course, means that leaving the bookstore without an ugly scene requires top-flight negotiation skills and not a little covert action–all of which can be brought to a standstill by some other Mom making a big noise about how much fun everyone’s having at the train table. She’s probably another one of those CIA agents.
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