“Do you offer boy parities, too?” I get asked this question so often. My answer is always: “Yes!” We offer a lot of themes that were created with boys in mind. Other themes were created with no gender in mind, and work great for either sex. However, for some reason or another we book far more little girl parties than boys. Sure we do a great deal of pirate parties for the under six fellas. But, after six we rarely see them again. For girls we book spy parties, wizard parties and of course spa parties up until nine, ten sometimes even older! In Story Time Explosion (my interactive story time program), there is so much more attention and interest from parents of daughters than those with sons. I have heard that the boys desire being active, or experiences that are more literal as “playing pretend” is corny or useless to them. This is so hard for me to believe. At these illusive boy parties, I see boys equally “jumping” into the story with their own ideas and thoughts. They are thrilled to drive the pirate ship (which I might add IS quite physical) and are completely engrossed by the stories twists and turns. Where then do these ideas come from?
When looking around children’s literature, it is surprising to see how spoiled our little female readers are with the most fabulous girl characters. There is of course wonderful, well written books starring boys, however, it seems that the chain bookstores prefer to carry the sassy girl books. I am of course talking about Olivia, Fancy Nancy, Eloise, Lilly (and her purple plastic purse) and many other picture book divas. Then you scan the isles of small chapter books and you see Ivy and Bean, Clementine, Judy Moody and a plethora of girl heroines (not to mention the entire section of American Girl books!) What is going on? I know that you are screaming at your computer the most obvious boy hero: Harry Potter, but he is surrounded by bookshelves of “girl’s only” reads.
My worry is that reading and in turn imaginative play as turned into a girl’s sport or at least that is the perception among adults. In working with children, I have asked many times, “What is your favorite book?” I am always amazed at the number of boys who respond by mentioning a Star Wars book, Sponge Bob book, Scooby Doo Book, etc. You know the ones that are for the most part poorly written about a TV show or movie, and are used as mass marketing? But, the characters with in these stories have much more appeal to the guy reader than a girl who wears a feather boa everywhere. Like previously stated, there are amazing books out there that are geared with boys in mind, but they may be harder to find. They aren’t going to be on every card board cut out in Barnes and Noble, or at the checkout line in the grocery store.
In my rant, I must also mention that there is a great deal of good being done for our dear boy readers. There are a few great series that have become commercial enough for the big books stores to take notice like the Spiderwick Chronicles, A Series of Unfortunate Events and of course the literature super star Harry Potter. Also exciting, Jon Scieszka our new ambassador of children’s literature (I love that there is such a thing!) has just introduced a new series of books called Truck Town. The series focuses around a group of vehicles that also happen to be in pre-school. It’s adorable, and the cast of illustrators is unbelievable. More impressive still, is Jon’s website that houses a collection of guy reads. My favorite is the search engine where children or parents can put in specific interest and press a button, and viola! The perfect book is found. I played around with the site for awhile listing every possible interest I could think of. I was super impressed to see terrific reads mentioned by wonderful authors like Richard Scarry, Mo Willems, Dr. Seuss and Jon himself.
The truth is boys love to read. They love to play pretend and they have superb imaginations. For some reason or another, this in my opinion, is not represented at our book stores. Why?
I would love to hear your thoughts.
Jenn, Imagination Celebrations
