Wishing for a new Default

I have a teacher about to teach Wish After Midnight. After beginning the first chapter, she reported that the girls are hooked, but not yet the boys. I remember that, yes, WAM is a book with a female protagonist and we’re supposed to teach boy books, aren’t we? Boys are more difficult to engage in literature, so boy books become the default in the curriculum.

I know boys will read: 9 out of the 10 top readers at my school are boys. So, I can’t use that logic for making boy books the default. Such thinking has pretty much the same logic as why literature by White authors is the default. Whites won’t pay attention to books about PoC. Boys won’t read books about girls. In perpetuating this thinking, we allow racism and sexism to continue by allowing the default group to pay no mind to any one who isn’t like them: to remain unaware of their similarities and differences and to ignore their possibilities. If we can’t even read books about those who are a different color or a different gender, how will we ever build bridges of understanding?

6 thoughts on “Wishing for a new Default”

  2. Amen! Shanon Hale just blogged about this too http://oinks.squeetus.com/2010/03/girls-arent-funny-and-other-life-lessons.html I completely agree with you both and I’m guilty of going to the default, of only offering my littlerother books about boys (using the logic that since he hates to read, he definitely won’t want to read about girls. Currently, he only reads the Dan Gutman books. THAT’S IT. *sigh*. He won’t even read Watsons Go to Birmingham. And he certainely wouldn’t pick up any book with a girl on the cover or as the main character. So how do I change that? I’m determined to work on it, though I don’t want to push him into reading).

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    1. Ari,
      Mitali Perkins recently blogged about books with girl heroes that boys like. I’m not sure about your brother’s age, you may need to save some for later. There’s always Junie B Jones! I’ll have to do research on another one I’m thinking of. It’s a mystery series featuring a young girl and it has boy appeal. I’ve had boys check out Drama High because they like the girls on the cover. I guess works, too!

      Doesn’t Gutman write sports? We can get some titles from Doret!

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