This is from BookExpo America in NYC last week: BEA 2013: The Boy Readers Are All Right
What boys are reading and if boys are reading are perennial topics of conversation and sources of concern, but to hear three authors discuss the topic at the Writing Genre for Boys panel at BEA last Friday, maybe we dont need to worry so much. The conversation drifted from what the participating authors Jack Gantos, Jon Scieszka, and Kevin Emerson read when they were kids to the way they use humor in their writing, reluctant readers, and the very idea of writing for boys (or girls) to begin with. Beyonders author Brandon Mull was also supposed to take part, but didnt appear, leading Scieszka, at one point, to quip to his empty chair, Brandon, youve been quiet.
Jordan Brown, a senior editor at HarperCollins, moderated the panel, and he opened by asking the writers what they used to read when they were boys. Series were clearly a hit, with Gantos (From Norvelt to Nowhere) professing his love for Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and Cherry Ames, while Emerson (the Atlanteans series) recalled reading the Three Investigators books, lots of Choose Your Own Adventure, and the nuances of the multiple threads of Spider-Man comics. I dont think there was such a thing as genre then, said Scieszka, editor of the Guys Read series. There were just really crappy books and the books they made you read in school.
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Writing Genre for Boys Panel featured (from l. to r.) HarperCollins Sr. Editor Jordan Brown, Kevin Emerson (The Fellowship for Alien Detection, Walden Pond), Jack Gantos (From Norvelt to Nowhere, FSG), and Jon Scieszka (Guys Read: Other Worlds, Walden Pond).
Readers Digest Condensed Books and the Classics Illustrated comics line were also popular with the authors in their youth. Gantos remembered hiding Classics Illustrated under his bed like child pornos. My mom would call them moron books, he said. The kind of books that keep a young man from becoming a man.
Scieszka said he thought todays kids have so much more available to them, and observed that they are far more sophisticated readers, since they are used to more complex entertainment, print or otherwise. I think the definition of humor has expanded, said Gantos. Humor is the welcome mat to bring you in to the book. You bait the reader with humor, then boom here comes the theme, boom here comes the interior life of the characters.
I hear and read a lot about boys not reading as much as girls but I just do not see it. Most guys I get along with read. Not as much as me but more than many adults I know of both sexes.
Quote:
What boys are reading and if boys are reading are perennial topics of conversation and sources of concern, but to hear three authors discuss the topic at the Writing Genre for Boys panel at BEA last Friday, maybe we dont need to worry so much. The conversation drifted from what the participating authors Jack Gantos, Jon Scieszka, and Kevin Emerson read when they were kids to the way they use humor in their writing, reluctant readers, and the very idea of writing for boys (or girls) to begin with. Beyonders author Brandon Mull was also supposed to take part, but didnt appear, leading Scieszka, at one point, to quip to his empty chair, Brandon, youve been quiet.
Jordan Brown, a senior editor at HarperCollins, moderated the panel, and he opened by asking the writers what they used to read when they were boys. Series were clearly a hit, with Gantos (From Norvelt to Nowhere) professing his love for Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, and Cherry Ames, while Emerson (the Atlanteans series) recalled reading the Three Investigators books, lots of Choose Your Own Adventure, and the nuances of the multiple threads of Spider-Man comics. I dont think there was such a thing as genre then, said Scieszka, editor of the Guys Read series. There were just really crappy books and the books they made you read in school.
Writing Genre for Boys Panel featured (from l. to r.) HarperCollins Sr. Editor Jordan Brown, Kevin Emerson (The Fellowship for Alien Detection, Walden Pond), Jack Gantos (From Norvelt to Nowhere, FSG), and Jon Scieszka (Guys Read: Other Worlds, Walden Pond).
Readers Digest Condensed Books and the Classics Illustrated comics line were also popular with the authors in their youth. Gantos remembered hiding Classics Illustrated under his bed like child pornos. My mom would call them moron books, he said. The kind of books that keep a young man from becoming a man.
Scieszka said he thought todays kids have so much more available to them, and observed that they are far more sophisticated readers, since they are used to more complex entertainment, print or otherwise. I think the definition of humor has expanded, said Gantos. Humor is the welcome mat to bring you in to the book. You bait the reader with humor, then boom here comes the theme, boom here comes the interior life of the characters.