Let the Boys Decide: Gender Assumptions and Boy Appropriate Books

I’m feeling a bit militant today, so be warned this is a bit of a rant. 

There’s a lot of outrage today about how Best of lists invariably list more books by male authors than by females. Some male readers claim they don’t enjoy books by women, period.

Where did this prejudice start? As children.

Most women my age will remember being steered toward books that were "girl appropriate": books with female protagonists, mysteries, books about horses, and romances. Most of us fought back. We said, those books were good, we enjoyed them, but we also want to read books about cowboys and rocket ships and dragons. Adult women are perfectly willing to read books with male protagonists. I can enjoy both historical romances AND military SF.

Girls today can read anything they want.

Not so boys. 

Boys are still steered toward "boy-appropriate books": SF, mysteries, boy-protagonist fantasy books are all okay. A romance? Never. The steering can be subtle. Books may not be outright forbidden, but how many times are female-protag, female-authored books recommended with a warning? “I enjoyed this book, but it does have kissing in it, so you may not like it.” 

As a YA author I find it extremely annoying when people decide that a romantic subplot--not the main plot, the subplot-- somehow disqualifies my books from being read by boys. This despite the fact that I love writing action scenes and my Otherselves series includes mirror magic, parallel worlds, volcanic eruptions, dragon attacks, airship battles, kidnappings, slave revolts and more. Think about that. If a man wrote a boy-protag book without a romantic subplot and told girls they shouldn’t read it, people would be outraged. But we constantly do the opposite.

I know, because I’ve done it myself. I have two sons and I’ve had to consciously stop myself from only recommending “boy” books to them. But here’s what I’ve discovered. Yes, my sons’ favourite author is Rick Riordan, but they also enjoyed Anne McCaffrey’s Harper Hall series, Cassandra Clare’s Clockwork Angel series, Gail Carriger's Finishing School series and Kelley Armstrong’s Age of Legend series, which have female-POV and romantic subplots. My eldest son’s favourite book by me isn’t the one that’s divided between girl/boy viewpoint, but Silver Eyes which is first person female POV.

So please, if you have a teen boy who likes to read on your Christmas list, don’t exclude female authors. Don’t warn boys that “they may not like” certain books. Let the boys decide for themselves.

(Also, don't reject books just because they have a girl's face on the cover.)

There is one True World, and then there are the four mirror worlds: fire, water, air, and stone. And each has a magic of its own...

In the Fire World, seventeen-year-old Leah is the illegitimate daughter of one of the realm's most powerful lords. She's hot-blooded - able to communicate with the tempestuous volcano gods. But she has another gift...the ability to Call her twin "Otherselves" on other worlds.

Holly resides in the Water World - our world. When she's called by Leah from the Fire World, she nearly drowns. Suddenly the world Holly thought she knew is filled with secrets, magic...and deadly peril.

For a malevolent force seeks to destroy the mirror worlds. And as Leah and Holly are swept up in the tides of chaos and danger, they have only one choice to save the mirror worlds - to shatter every rule they've ever known...

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