Adam Heine writes, draws, blogs, and fosters children in Thailand. AND he speaks Air Pirate. As if that wasn’t enough awesome, he was once a boy who read books. For which we have a special fondness here at Ink Spells.
Boy Books
by Adam Heine
What makes a good boy book? I have no doubt you’ve read articles on this by people more qualified than me. I’m not an expert on the market or the publishing industry. But I was a boy once, and I know what I liked. That ought to count for something. There were two things, in particular, that I really understood when it came to fiction: quests and struggles.
QUESTS Boys like adventure. I did anyway. My Star Wars and Transformers action figures were always searching for something, rescuing someone, or thwarting a villain’s evil plot. The quest touched something in my core; my world was a quest, or at least I wanted it to be.
So I glommed onto books like The Hobbit and Dark is Rising, or even the lesser quests of The Rats of NIMH and The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I loved The Fellowship of the Ring, but started losing interest in the parts of the later books that didn’t follow Frodo. The Ring was the quest.
Why did all that other stuff matter?
STRUGGLES Boys like to fight. I don’t know why, but even at a young age — even with no fighting role models to learn from — boys chase each other, shoot each other, box, wrestle…all for fun.
But struggles don’t have to be physical. Prison escapes, bank heists, or elaborate pranks on a bully were every bit as riveting to me as a space battle or a fight between kung-fu masters. Ender’s Game is one of my favorite books in this regard. Ender struggled against bullies and aliens, against enemy teams in the Battle Room, and against the teachers themselves. Sometimes it was physical, but often it was a mind game, and those are just as good.
Not surprisingly, one thing I didn’t get was ROMANCE. I was totally into girls, had a crush on one since the third grade, but romance in a story was totally lost on me. “Guy gets girl” was fine for a sub-plot (that could be ignored), but it had no place being the Quest. In fact I was so good at ignoring romance that, when I reread Lord of the Rings for the first time in years, I said, “Elrond has a daughter?!”
Not that romance can’t be in a boy’s book. I read books with girls in them all the time. But I cared less about love, and so missed a lot of the subtleties (“Elrond’s daughter is hot for ARAGORN?!!”). Honestly, I think boy books should have romance, and everything else — gotta stretch those boys’ imaginations, right? — but my favorite books were the ones where kissing stayed behind the scenes.
But that’s just what I was like. What do you think makes a good boy book? If you were a boy (or if you raise boys, teach boys, etc.), what were your/their favorite books? Why, do you think?
Thank you Adam!
This is a great post, thank you! I'm writing a YA with a boy as the main character that I'm hoping will be a good read for both genders. This helps a lot to see what boys often look for in books!
True dat — I can handle reading the romantic subplots now, but writing them remains difficult. It's all about the quest (though a bit of wenching was always okay :)!
Dark Omen can't stand the romance either, although most MG books have very little of that (or the kisses are very chaste). It's the YA realm where the romance gets heavy, and I think it's tougher for boys to find good reads.
My boys read my MG novel with me, as I wrote it. My favorite feedback: "You need to blow more things up, Mom." Alas. That will have to wait for my next MG novel.
Some suggested reads for boys can be found here.
Yes, all middle-grade boys very sensibly look for things to blow up! And kissing is not for MANLY MEN like us! That's why, whenever I show a movie here, I rate it as K or NK–Kissing or Non-Kissing. All K is classified as Objectionable Content. No, really, though, I'm glad you put up this post about boy reading. Mr. Heine has hit it right on the head. Boys like and need books with quests and struggles becuase growing up is all about the quest for independence and the struggle to achieve it. This strikes a deep chord in boys and stories that show the quest and struggle successfully completed in a good way are valuable to us. That alos means good realistic fiction, like Maniac Magee or Heart of a Shepherd, are good sturggle and quest books too.
@Carl You are in the trenches with those boy readers, so I'm taking your word for gospel, my friend! 🙂
K or NK <– ha! Dark Omen finds the K Objectionable as well. 😉
My next MG novel is going to be boy-centric, so I am taking notes! Thanks for stopping by!
Ah, so I'm not the only one!
Shallee: I'm glad this helps. I figured I'm so clueless about what girls want in books, that I bet what's obvious to me about boys isn't obvious to everyone either.
Bane: I'm with you. I've only recently decided not to be afraid of writing romance. Now to actually do it…
Carl: I love your rating system. I'll have to remember that for when my boys grow up.
My son skips over any hints of romance, too 🙂
I write action adventures & mysteries especially for tween boys – books for boys blog http://booksandboys.blogspot.com
"Elrond's daughter is hot for ARAGORN?!!" YES! LOL, great post Adam!
Love the site, Susan! 🙂
@Amanda Thanks! 🙂
I've always been sucked in by exciting premises, setting or idea: A dying land controlled by a dark crystal, or there's a boy who rides a giant talking dog, or there's a castle as big and sprawling as an entire city, and so on.
I think it's related to the desire to explore someplace alien and dangerous or fantastic. Being transported.
That's a really good one, Ricardo. Exploration. For me, that's why I loved any book with a map 🙂
I never cared much for Elrond's daughter, but I loved that part where Eowyn confronted the Lord of the Nazgul.
And the boys I know (even the teenaged ones) feel the same way you did about romance and kissing in their books.
I love you guys so much. And I completely agree that like life, in stories, romance is an important element, but if it's the only element, as a dude, I am quickly bored to tears.