Matthew D. Zbaracki

Looking over the output of most publishing for children and teens, it has become quite obvious that books for girls predominate, partly because narrative reading, particularly among boys is down. Realizing this and the need to keep attracting boys to reading, Zbaracki has collected 400 recommended titles that he feels will attract a male reader. The book begins with an excellent essay about reading and boys and then follows the annotated list of humor, realistic fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, poetry, graphic novels, nonfiction, and modern classics. But most of all, one finds in all these major genres the yuk, the strange, the adventure, and the machismo expected of the young buck who is probably already engaged in video games and other social networking. We found lots of obvious friends and new ideas among the titles and thus recommend this list highly to reconsider what those shelves contain and a signal to think about this minority of readers along with the many other objectives of a broad free voluntary reading program. Happily, lexile levels and whether there are digital tests available have been ignored. Let’s go after interest first and think about skill second on this one.… (altro)