The boys:
Karate stance, crazy leap/kick, hi-ya!
We’re injas! (Ninjas, that is.)
Hey, you sit here, with your head down, and I’ll jump over you!
If we pull this table over here, and stack these bean bags over here, and put this tray on top, and put this bucket on our heads, we can slide down our fort!
Me:
Please don’t point your finger-guns at people. Or any living thing. Ninjas don’t even use guns.
Get off of your brother’s head.
No, you cannot use my tray to slide down your bean bag tower. I don’t care if you have a bucket helmet. I’m not worried about your head, I’m worried about my tray.
I said, get. off. your. brother’s. head. now.
It is not funny to fart on people’s heads.
No, it’s really not funny.
Dudes, that’s gross.
End scene. Only it’s not a scene. It’s my life.
I am alone, people. The lone sane voice in a testosterone-fueled house, where danger is equivalent to fun, gross is equivalent to hilarious.
I know girls do this stuff, too; I’ve witnessed little girls go all in with the gross-out humor. But anyone who lives with boys knows that high energy rough-housing, often flavored with disgusting sounds and smells is more than a once-in-a-while activity. It’s a way of life. The jumping, running, shooting, building, burping, and farting never stop.
So we send them outside to play and enroll them in sports. We make sure they have constructive ways to burn up that energy.
Although I appreciate, and even embrace, their wild nature, I am also so grateful that my tiny neanderthals love to read. Both of my boys will happily look at books, and even more happily listen to stories, with patience you wouldn’t believe possible after witnessing their active playtime.
My guess is that nearly all young kids appreciate story time, but I’ve heard from people with older kids that reading can lose its appeal as kids grow. Some things never change, and apparently it’s still not cool to be a book nerd. While I don’t want to be Tiger Mom-like in my zeal, I do want to encourage a love of books.
One of our favorite authors around here is Jon Scieszka, who writes the Trucktown books. Both of my boys love all of the crashing, smashing silliness in Mr. Scieszka’s books. In fact, yesterday after P. finished leaning over the back of the sofa, dropping cars as though they were bombs on the fire truck below, we read Truckery Rhymes three times. We cuddled under a blanket, stopping often to talk about the pictures and compare the original versions of the rhymes to the truck-ed out versions.
I live for those moments. The moments when non-stop motion ceases, a soft cheek rests on my shoulder, allowing me to not-so-secretly breathe in my son’s subtle sweaty-yet-sweet scent… well, that’s heaven on earth.
Recently, I went in search of more information about the man behind Trucktown, hoping to order a few more books moments. My search led me to Guys Read, an online literacy program started by Mr. Scieszka. According to the site, Guys Read is focused on helping boys (young and old) become self-motivated, lifelong readers.
Research shows that boys are having trouble reading, and that boys are getting worse at reading. No one is quite sure why. Some of the reasons are biological. Some of the reasons are sociological.
But the good news is that research also shows that boys will read — if they are given reading that interests them.
I find that disheartening and thrilling at the same time. Disheartening, because I don’t want my bookworms to give up on reading; there’s not an awful lot I can do about their biology (see: farting on brother’s head). But it’s thrilling to know that there are people like Jon Scieszka and resources like Guys Read.
Perhaps there’s hope for this generation of boys.
Perhaps my guys will never outgrow the thrill of a good book.
I wonder…
:: Whether you have boys or girls, how do you foster a love of books and reading?
:: Will you push them to read even if they say they hate it? How will you combat the “it’s not cool to read” argument?
:: Do you have any great guy-themed reading resources?
** PLEASE NOTE ** Â
This post could be a review for Jon Scieszka/Trucktown/Guys Read, but it’s not. I’ve never met or talked to Mr. Scieszka, and I am not being compensated in way, shape, or form. I just wanted to share this information with you, because I think it’s awesome. The end.
Lapsed homemaker. Looking to hire a full-time housekeeper who will work for the sheer joy of a job well done and free coffee. Interested parties, DM please. 
This is such a great post.
Eddie LOVES the Trucktown books!! We have probably read Smash Crash a ZILLION times. He just loves loves LOVES books.
With another boy on the way, and seeing daily that MOST teenage boys are not interested in reading, I wonder a LOT about what I can do to keep this excitement about reading.
But I think, really, it’s the environment you create.
My mom was an avid reader and my dad, though he said he wasn’t a reader, really was. He read the newspaper and magazines daily.
I became a reader like my mom. Both of my brothers claim to NOT be readers, but one has a Kindle and the other asks for political books and books about bands and music all the time.
Both didn’t sit and read books in high school (or most of college), but now that they are not forced to read, they DO read for pleasure…frequently.
I am confident that fostering an environment where education and current events and conversation is vital, will help create life-long readers in my boys.
Or at least that is what I am placing my hopes in.
Thanks for the Boom! feature. 🙂
I’m with you on creating a conducive environment – and then hoping they take the bait!
Both my kids – 1 boy and 1 girl – love to read. Both read far above grade level (though he a bit further than she) and both will spend long periods of time reading alone. My son read Bridge to Terabithia in a weekend. It is not a short book.
All that said, he is not the typical boy in many of the ways you describe above. Yes, he loves potty humor but he is naturally not as rough as other boys. He was mild mannered from birth. So reading or playing with his Legos are his favorite activities.
I say all this because, while I feel like I have done quite a bit to encourage reading (we even have summer book reports), it has never been difficult for us. No one protested the summer book reports. They enjoyed the challenge of seeing how many they could complete. Basically, I birth nerds. I do think they came out this way. I do not think I created it. Yes, you could encourage it, but a true love for something comes from within.
I hope I birthed nerds!! 😉
I do think a lot of it is something from within; I’ve heard of people raised by book-lovers who just don’t read. There’s a limit to what we can do, I suppose, but I’m going to hold on to the hope that I have some readers here who will respond to my encouragement.
My girls love to read, although we don’t do it nearly as much anymore. I used to read to them several times a day for a long time each time. When I was pregnant and couch restricted, they would stand at the edge of the couch and listen to me read, often the same books over and over, for a good 45 MINUTES. Seriously. Then when baby came along, it was harder, then social media came along and it’s like what books?
But I truly believe that fostering a love of reading can be done by immersing them in the world of books: reading to them, letting them “read” themselves, and seeing you read. Which means I need to stop reading my screen and pick up one of the many books sitting on my nightstand.
Isn’t it easy to fall behind on books when we spend so much time on the screen? I still read books every day, but overall I read less than I used to – I need to remedy that, like right now! 😉
JBird loves to read. Since she was a baby I’ve surrounded her (and now Thumper) with books.
We always read at night too, and she sees me reading a lot – I think these help.
I do think it helps to let them see you read, too!
We are stuck in Berenstain Bear hell right now. Like we’ve read the entire series like 2938892 times. I can read it with my eyes shut.
But Chunky loves them.
So I keep reading.
Even though I want to shoot those bears and skin them and dance in my yard cloaked with their hides, it is my favourite time of day.
I even catch him reading out loud to his stuffed Angry Bird.
Swoon.
Ps. I’m not violent. I love bears. I’d never kill one.
Don’t you want to run away after reading the same book 2938892 times?? I feel your pain. But it’s also kind of cute that they don’t get bored. We’re currently on an Amazing Airplanes kick with P. Every day he asks the same questions; every day I give the same answers. Aaaaagh.
That is adorable that Chunky reads to is Angry Bird. Love it!
trust me, it’s not strictly a testosterone fueled thing… my daughter (you know, the one who adores anything pink and sparkly, loves her dance class more than breathing, and is in love with princesses and mermaids) would just as soon fart on her brothers head as kiss him.
but anyways.
i think the key to having a kid who likes to read is reading to them when they’re little, then supplying them with books when they get older and don’t like story time as much. it’s also VERY important to give them the kind of books the LIKE. when my son got older, i gave him rewards for finishing books. eventually he quit reading, and never picked up any of the books i gave him. (kids fantasy/mystery novels… the kind of stuff i loved when i was his age) finally, my husband started giving him reference books to read, and the kid eats them up. he LOVES to read reference books… just like his father. with him, it was only a matter of figuring out what he wanted to read about. we also have a “no video games during the week” rule to to push other sources of entertainment. 🙂
That’s the kind of stuff I loved as a kid, too! 😉 It will be interesting to see what the boys pick as they get older. Right now, my oldest loves anything that’s filled with facts about animals.
My older son loves books just as much as trains and trucks and jumping on his brother’s head, thank goodness. My younger son wouldn’t sit still for anything until about a month ago, praise heaven, when he discovered books about trucks and tractors and whatever else.
And as an elementary teacher, I can definitely attest to the fact that all kids can be turned into readers if the right books are put into their hands. I don’t know how much past adolescence it lasts, but younger kids love a good story, and they love nonfiction a lot more than most teachers and parents do. I think if we read a lot around them and to them, then put a ton of choices in front of them, they’ll find their “home run” books – the ones that will foster that internal love of reading that we so want for them.
Also if you keep suggesting quality books, but don’t flinch if they read a series over and over or even comic books, then you’ll do a lot to get them to love it. I know lots of parents that try to control what books their kids read, but outside of weeding out the inappropriate ones, I think we need to let them make their own choices as much as possible.
I think if you hook them early, they’ll keep reading at home, at least, even if their peers at school think it isn’t cool.
Ok, that was my two (or more) cents as a teacher and a fellow mom of boys!
I think what you say about finding the RIGHT books (and letting them read what they love, even if we don’t think it looks interesting!) is great advice. It would be fun to share our favorite books, but I’d rather the boys read anything than not read because I forced something on them!
I really, really hope that I pass along my book nerdiness to my kids. And I’m totally going to make a habit of checking out Guys Read on a regular basis.
My kids . . . well, they’re not talking yet, so the gross-out humor isn’t something big yet. But, yeah, it’s already obvious that the boy enjoys physical humor, and finds humor in excretory functions, far more than the girl.
What the hell is on the Y chromosome?
It starts so early, doesn’t it? Both of my boys giggled at gas almost immediately. My world is a lot like living in a frat house, but much, much cleaner (thank goodness) and no beer bongs (although Mark probably would not object to that).
Thanks so much for the info about the Guys Read program. I’m looking forward to checking it out. I totally hear you about the boy-ness and being outnumbered, although I only have one boy, my husband and the boy dog 🙂 We are also big readers over here. My son is starting to read on his own and it totally melts my heart. We haven’t yet gotten to a stage where there is any realization that reading may be uncool, but I shudder to think about it. I do think because boys gravitate towards the physical stuff that I think their brains *need*, books may get short shrift later on, but I’m hoping by then I have more tools to address it!! Great post 🙂