KidsBrain

From Jon Scieszka’s Guys Read website:

A lot of boys are having trouble reading.

• The U.S. Department of Education reading tests for the last 30 years show boys scoring worse than girls in every age group, every year.
• Eighth grade boys are 50 percent more likely to be held back than girls.
• Two-thirds of Special Education Students in high school are boys.
• Overall college enrollment is higher for girls than boys.

This is not news to a lot of teachers and parents.  And let’s face it, a lot of chapter books out there have too many cute pictures on the cover, describe too many feelings (eeeew), and are just not appealing to boys.  If your boy needs a little extra encouragement or inspiration to make reading fun, there are two websites that are great resources for you.

Guys Read was created by author Jon Scieszka of Time Warp Trio and Stinky Cheese Man fame to promote boys literacy.  For awesome book lists, authors and more that have guy-appeal, you can’t find a much better source.  I particularly like the odd themes Scieszka uses to group books, such as “at least one explosion,” “monkeys and/or apes” and “outer space, but without aliens.”

Books 4 Boys was created by Penguin Publishers to provide “tried-and-true favorites as well as brand-new suggestions specifically for boys.”  The catch with this website is that it is run by a publisher, so naturally the titles listed are limited to Penguin publications.  On the flip side, the advantage of being run by the publisher is that they provide free excerpts to read online if you want to test drive a book before picking it up at the library.  Lists are available by author, series, age and grade level, and genre/theme.

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