The Final Post On Why I Write MG

Why do I write MG - and why is my latest work for boys?

The answer is right under my nose and under my feet all the time. He's a creature in perpetual motion, knocking over everything and creating whirlpools of energy in his wake.

My little boy.

Gratuitous picture of my first born. Old picture, but yah, he's still that awesome. And he's a committed, enthusiastic reader. Reading is the one activity for which he is completely still.

I am grateful every day for that - yes, the stillness, but also and mostly, the reading. I do all I can to encourage him. Like that book club he and I started - which, by way, is going like gangbusters.

GANGBUSTERS, I say, and I am beyond thrilled that at least for these young boys, reading is an activity of choice and pleasure, one they look forward to, can truly engage in, and will share with their friends.

That's not true for many boys though, and this is no surprise. Statistics continue to show us that girls outpace boys in reading skills and engagement.  Most schools have a guideline for young readers - 20 minutes a day. But not everyone follows it - and it's mostly the boys who are falling short.

I write MG for boys because I have a Big Dream: to write 1 or 20 of the books that will make boys stay up late and read under the covers with a flashlight and bely the scary literacy stats.

This Big Dream began to crystallize back when when Nicholas began reading chapter books (at age 5) and we discovered Magic Tree House and Geronimo Stilton and so many other fun series for young readers. But when we needed some variety and trolled the library for new books, I saw the deficit: not enough cool boy characters. We devoured these:

And other classics, like this:

My son got to discover the plethora of great stuff out there, both classics and new. But as he discovered the greatness, I discovered something else. It seemed to me there were so many more great series and stand-alones with girl protagonists.

So, BIG yay for my daughter, but what about my son?

Ok, here's the part where I state the obvious lest I be accused of backward, Neanderthal, anti feminist thinking:

I AM NOT SUGGESTING gender must match the reader. How boring would that be. Plus, we all know the whole point of reading is to get excited about and explore people and ideas you don't get to see in your own world.That's why it's so amazingly wonderfully transportive - we as writers know that as well as we know how to blink our eyes. It's an instinctive knowledge.

But. Also.

Part of the draw of reading is seeing yourself in a book. It feels great and empowering when you read about someone else who feels and acts like you do, - you're not alone! And then it gets even better because here's that person like you but also not - who has crazy, exciting adventures that are so much fun to read, you'll spend a whole afternoon inside even though it's a beautiful day outside.

So we need more books for boys in general. But it doesn't stop there. #WeNeedDiverseBooks because so many of the boys who aren't engaged with books also aren't white and middle class in spite of what's on the shelves. The boys having the great adventures also need to be black or mixed or Latino or Asian or Native American. My son doesn't look mixed, but he is - and I clearly am - so when he looks for his family in a book, he rarely finds it.

I want to write the books that engage him and his friends and ALSO reflect his world and his life.

We need more Carter Kanes.

I love the other boy heroes out there -- Percy Jackson - yay! Alex Rider - cool! The Origami Yoda crowd - Hilarious! Toothless and Hiccup - also Hilarious! Plus, duh, there's Harry Potter.

But we need  more. We need to re-engage our boys and we need to bring them all into the tent, not just the white middle-class ones.

What do you think?

Why I Write MG

I've been thinking a lot about this question lately. Partly that's because the #mywritingprocess blog hop is still alive and well, and I've been reading others' answers to that question. And partly because I've been rereading some of  my old favorites.

It started when I got this hankering to go back to ANNE OF GREEN GABLES, which was hands down one of my very favorite series for many years when I was young.

I still have the books - they're on a bookshelf containing many of my old besties, waiting patiently for the day my daughter may want to read them. (My son's tastes definitely do not run toward that kind of voice -- he's more of a Star Wars, Percy Jackson, and Origami Yoda guy. And he loves Roald Dahl. MAYBE I can get him to read Sammy Keyes. I love the books he loves too - but they're definitely not Anne. He's among the primary  reasons I write MG, but that's the subject of another post)

When I pulled the book off the shelf, it made that delicious sound. You know, the one a hardback book makes when it slides out from between other hardback books? That scrapey, soft sound of anticipation. As I felt the weight of the book fall into my hand I had the SAME FEELING. The one I had all those times I read it as a young girl, the feeling of deep content. I was hanging out with a person I loved, living in her world, talking and acting a little like her - kind of on purpose and kind of because I couldn't help  myself. She's why I always wanted to be a red head.

These books in particular hold a special place in my heart because I bought them myself. I found them in a bookstore and begged my stepfather to buy them all for me because the library only carried the first three of the eight books. He did buy them -- but then made me purchase each one back from him. At the time I thought that was unusual cruelty. I want them now! now! now! But instead, I had to slowly earn the money, babysitting every weekend for months, hoarding dollars and quarters until I could afford a book. Truth told, in spite of my childish impatience, the process made each purchase all the sweeter.

And when I was finally able to fork over the cash and get a new book  -

                                                                  HAPPY DANCE!

Each purchase merited cozy days of nothing but reading, tucked into a corner of the living room or on my bed, blocking out everything in the world but Anne Shirley and Prince Edward Island.

It's that -- the tucking in and coziness and lost-in-another-world  memories -- that fuels my MG writing specifically. The book worm I was and still am today hopes deeply to create and share those exact blissful moments for young book-worms-in-the-making.  This is the age when you either learn to love reading, begin to see it as a necessary part of your life, or not. The books they read now - I hope - will be books they return to again and again, like calling up an old friend on the phone to catch up. I want to be one of those old friends.

Other authors that took me to my happy place? Madeleine L'Engle, E.L. Konigsburg, Louisa May Alcott, Maud Hart Lovelace, Laura Ingalls Wilder, E.B. White.

Who are yours? And why do you write?