I loved the Little House books growing up, despite the received wisdom that Boys Hate Girl Books, and that books with pictures of girls on the cover are (for little boys, at least) deadly when it comes to sales. But the received wisdom is often wrong; some girl books do well for boys but for different reasons than they do for girls.
Ever since Nancy Drew outperformed the Hardy Boys in the 1930s, it’s been clear that boys will read some stories about girls. Publishers have marketed titles to take advantage of this fact. The Amazon entry for Little House in the Big Woods, for example, urges boys to “take another peek at their sisters’ shelves.” This Little House book, it promises, “is full of the thrills, chills, and spills typically associated with ‘boy’ books.” The real appeal of Little House for many boys probably isn’t the narrative, but rather the precise and detailed descriptions of how to tap a maple tree for syrup or load a musket. Betsy-Tacy and All-of-a-Kind Family, too, are full of information about their worlds. According to Eden Ross Lipson, the author of The New York Times Parent’s Guide to the Best Books for Children, boys read on a need-to-know basis: To generalize wildly, “They don’t set out looking for story and relationship. They set out looking for information.”
Why then do a lot of boys get turned off from reading sometime in elementary or middle school? The blame partly lies with librarians. They are mostly women, they tend to love stories, and they also have a thing for books that teach moral lessons. (Take a look at this list of the winners of the Newbery Medal for children’s literature awarded by the American Library Association.) Librarians also play a hugely important role in children’s book publishing. “You don’t get a walloping success without that institutional support,” says Lipson, who is the former editor of the children’s section of the New York Times Book Review. Authors like Jon Scieszka (The True Story of the Three Little Pigs!, The Stinky Cheese Man) and Gary Paulsen (Hatchet, the Tucket adventures) have hit home runs with books whose humor or historical element appeal especially to boys. But they’re the exceptions. Librarians and teachers often look down on boy humor or nonfiction, and their disdain seeps through to the boys who crave those things. “What we’re doing now is pushing one thing: fine literature,” says Scieszka, a former teacher. “For some kids, that doesn’t do it.”
Exactly. If Johnny doesn’t read, maybe that’s because there aren’t books out there that appeal to him. Except for tales of Pa Ingalls loading his rifle …
Those were girl’s books? Oh, man…
Actually, the wealth of detail is exactly why I liked them. I don’t remember any of the stories but I do remember the descriptions of how they did things.
Hmmm…
Interesting.
I didn’t like reading until the reading techer at the Hippie School came up with a novel (heh ;P ) way to get me to read. My first week there, reading class took on the The Hobbit. She read the first chapter. (she did the songs and everything *glee*), and told us that we needed to read the second chapter by then next day.
Needless to say I was hooked by that first chapter…especially since it was not like reading had been at “Normal” school, which consisted of reading banel stories out of a reading book out loud. Which was boring and I read ahead…which caused problems and and low grades because I wasn’t following along.
Yet another reason I was recommended for the retarded school by the Evil Teacher.
Anyways, after that, I read all of the books, including the Silmarillian by the end of sixth grade and enjoyed all of them. And which made me the reader that I am today.
Now as to girl books…for them most part they sucked. Some of them were marginally interesting “hello god, it’s me Margret” was one that fit that bill. The S.E. Henton books sucked. Little house on the Prairie sucked. Most of them just didn’t seem to ring true to me in any way, so would agree whole heartedly with the premise of that article.
Now that being said…
The one and only “girl” book that I truely enjoyed, I didn’t read until I was in the 18-20 range. One Christmas eve we had a blizzard in town and I was stuck at my Mom and Step-Fathers house for 3 days until the streets were clear enough to get back home. Needless to say, I was a bit bored. One the Coffee table infront of the Sofa I was sleeping on was a copy of the Anne of Green Gable’s omnibus that my mom had bought.
I picked it up and was hooked by the second chapter and finished it over the three days. Mostly it was because the characters were so deep and alive that it was a joy to read…and I really got wrapped up in the story (as a side note, there is a reason that Puck’s name is Cate and not Kate…and it is from that book.)
I read a couple of the Anne books later in life (after the excellent Canadian TV series). Enjoyed them a lot.
But, yeah, I read many, many of the Little House books, largely because of the details of life in the Big Woods, or on the Prairie, etc. Never did much care for the TV show, though, you’ll be glad to know.