I have been thinking more and more about my Bookslut columns for this year, trying to craft them in ways that improve on themes from the past and yet manage to include lots of different books from different authors that might get overlooked for teens (and kids) otherwise. One thing I've realized in all the focused reading I've done for that site is that there are plenty of great books for boys and girls when they are young but when we approach the post Middle Grade years, the titles for boys drop off hugely. There are a zillion books for teenage girls, many of them romance, family dramas, quirky family comedies, saucy school dramas, and on and on. But for boys it seems that most publishers just don't seem to know what to do. It is ridiculous the amount of time I spend trying to find decent "boy" books compared to those for girls. Girls are easy - girl books are everywhere - but boy friendly titles just aren't.

There, I've said it. Books for teenage boys are not easy to come by. (And I have read more than one book that seems to be marketed to boys but reads to me as a book for girls with male protagonists. Girls love them, but I don't think they hit with the boys so much. I also read books with teen boy protags that I think are really written for 30 year old male reviewers. Again, not thinking they work so well for the high school guys either.)

When everyone wonders why kids don't read so much what they seem to mean more often, is why do girls read trash and boys read nothing. I remember my jr high/high school years and while they included some big important books, they were mostly about Harlequin Romance novels. I read at least 1,000 - or maybe even 5,000? - of those books between the ages of 14 and 17. They were with me all the time and I bought them at thrift shops and library sales by the truckload.

It was trash and it was what kept me alive. (I also ate a lot of doritos and drank pepsi like it was a food group. ) What I wanted was a cowboy/soldier/fireman/covert government operative/cowboy/pilot/cowboy/super rich guy/COWBOY to take me away from everything in my small town life. This was both very pedestrian and very typical. Am I proud of spending so much time deluded in happily ever after land? No - but I'm not ashamed either. I was a teenager, we do stupid things. I wasn't getting drunk, high or pregnant, just reading romance novels.

There were worse things I could do, believe me.

But the boys. What were the boys reading? Not a single one of my guy friends read anything that I can remember outside of school assignments. They never talked books. They were studious guys (AP English even) but reading was not their idea of fun. They surfed, listened to an absurd amount of music, played tennis, had jobs and bought cars. We went to the movies and parties and hung out. I always had a book in my backpack, they never did.

So girls read trash and boys read nothing (making a case in the broadest general terms here and I know full well there are exceptions to the rule but I'm ignoring them). Girls will go beyond the trash though - they might segue from the Gossip Girls and their ilk into some funny Chick Lit and then back into what interested them when they were younger before romance dominated their lives. They'll go for mysteries or SFF (former Harry Potter fans) or ease back into literature (we all do adore Little Women after all). But if boys have stopped completely then what becomes of their future potential reading habits?

Can you become a reader again at 25 if you quit when you were 12?

It's something to think about, this keeping boys reading business. And I really do believe that they must be targeted as the specific creatures they are. What do boys like as boys - boys of all colors, races, locations, sexualities? What are not their common interests so much as their common traits? What makes boys tick in other words?

(Answer that one for me and I'll try to time warp back to my 16 year old self - it could save her a ton of heartache and frustration!)

Boy books versus girl books, and just what the differences must be. I think it all comes down to what my brother read lot of when he was in high school: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov and the X-Men. Not a romance in the bunch but a lot of action and mystery. And some space ships; you've got to have space ships.

I think science fiction and fantasy could save teenage boys. What I'd love to know is why, judging from all the catalogs that come my way, I seem to be in the minority when it comes to thinking this. There is SFF out there but so much of the SF is depressing dystopian end-of-the-world stuff that I think anyone would get sick of it after awhile. Space opera? Alien adventure? Dr. Who-like mysteries and thrillers? in other words, SFF that doesn't suck the life out of you? Not so much and that's a shame because I think publishers are missing an opportunity here. There must be millions of teenage boys looking for the 21st century Bradbury or Burroughs. Give us jungle adventure or life on Mars and I think they'd read it; in fact I know they would.

I'm writing about Alaska right now - anybody else up for this challenge?
[Post pic of a flying car because really - that more than anything is what a boy wants.]