Good for Goose and Gander

I've been thinking a lot recently about what boys read and what girls read.
I have two daughters and we're a pink swathed bunch as we schlep out to the beach, pink swim suits, pink buckets and shovels, pink mermaid/fairy towels. I can barely pull my daughter's attention away from pink/purple/gold-a-liciousness, never mind get her to read something that might have a whiff of a Y chromosome. I understand what a gender bias looks like.


When I was growing up, I read anything. Narnia, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Agatha Christie -  anything as long as it was an adventure story. I don't remember children's books being so gender specific in the 70's - though maybe that's due to the "Free to Be You and Me" factor.


Whatever the reality was, now there seems to be girl books and boy books and nary the twain shall meet. It's much, much more pronounced as boys get older. Beyond middle grade there seems to be an attrition in books for teen, male readers.


At the Pennwriters Conference last month, Becky Levine and I spoke briefly (while trying to flag down the waitress who was passing with little spinach pie canapes) about this. My question to Becky was, which came first, the lack of interest from boys that age in reading, or the lack of books that boys that age would be interested in? I can't tell you how many people at the conference were psyched to hear that the main character in my YA Fantasy is a boy. Is there really a lack of new releases geared towards boys, or is it that boys are intrinsically (or maybe they are taught to be this way) less able to 'insert themselves' into a book where the main character is a girl - a trick, by the way, that girls had to learn to do through necessity from when only boys were having any fun in children's books. I mean, who would you rather be, Peter Pan or Wendy?


Becky has a cool post about summer reads for boys - books that work for boys AND girls, that she compiled with the help of her teenaged son.


And I found a great post on the Book Whisperer's site - a cool blog about Donalyn Miller, a Texas educator who is all about getting kids to read - on how "We create a crisis when we define readers along gender lines," and what her in-the-classroom experience has taught her about how boys read.


Both these posts include awesome reading lists excellent for girls, boys and even adults.


Tomorrow I'll talk about the Horror, SciFi and Fantasy genres and why women writers in these generes may be getting short shrift.


In the meantime, what's your favorite children's book that's not necessarily for your gender?

Why You Read What You Read

Yesterday, when I posted about Summer Reads 2011, I realized that most of my picks were in the YA/Fantasy realm. I've been slowly sucked into that genre since Harry Potter and Lyra Belacqua hit the scene. Now it's what I look for especially since it's what I'm writing (now.)

Having said that, I love all genres, even the literary 'non' genre. There's nothing I won't read, but I do go through phases. When Bryce Daniels posted on my blog yesterday that he was looking forward to the new Jeffrey Deaver book, it brought me back to when I would devour those books. I had a serious crime/thriller bent in my late twenties. I've also been into golden age mysteries, romance novels, classics and graphic novels. 

It's not that I don't like those things now, it's just not where I'm at. I bought a romance recently by an author who I really liked, Elizabeth Hoyt. It has gathered dust in my TBR pile while other books get whipped through. I pick it up, I put it down. My reading moods seem to last for years. It's a funny thing.

At the Pennwriters conference agents couldn't say enough about the need to be knowledgeable about your genre - specifically reading in your genre. I think it was Kathleen Ortiz that had the rule '2000 in 2000 out', meaning that for every 2000 words you write, you should be reading that much of your genre. Barbara Poelle went a little further, telling us to find the shelf at the bookstore where our book would be. Go alphabetically in the genre and find where your yet-to-be-published book would be. Then buy (or get out of the library) the two books on either side of the shelf. Educate yourself.

So, do you read in your genre? Do you cheat on the genre you write in? Do you mix it up or go through phases like I do? What genre are you reading and why?

Summer Reads 2011

The idea of a summer or beach read is a complete fallacy, at least for me. It's something undoubtedly created by publishers and marketers to move books, create news items and hype. Can you tell I didn't sleep last night? Cranky, I know.

My problem with the summer read is that I won't sit down on a beach to read anytime soon. I won't tuck a book into my cute straw beach bag while I sit on the Hamptons Jitney and I won't while away a Sunday afternoon drinking a pint of Blue Moon and reading the summer book-blockbuster down my local, either.

Because I can only read when my kids are asleep. Like I said, makes me cranky. My biggest hobby before kids used to be reading. I would read two, three books a week. I joined Roof Beam Reader's TBR book challenge in January and I'm still on book three, when I should be on book six. Sigh.

So, when I see the Summer Reads piece in the LA Times, I grump some more, thinking, when the hell will I get to finish the books I already have, never mind new ones?

Then, this happens: I start to drool. I see book covers and I feel like I'm staring at the penny candy bins at the sweet shop. All these yummy books to devour, all these worlds to get lost in. I need new books! I need to read these! THIS SUMMER!

Here are the ones I'm itching to read:

As impractical as buying more books (or even getting them out of the library as I often do) is, I can't help myself. Booksellers, publishers, et al, I am your target demographic. Books are everything to me.

Kids are finally asleep. Going to go read me some Marbury Lens. That will make me feel less grumpy.

What books are you excited to get your book-loving mitts on this summer?