Nice post, Colleen. It's a great catch-up one.

A husband who builds bookcases makes you elitist? I think it makes you lucky!

I'll say something articulate later. For now, let me say, you rock. I share your frustrations. I worked in publishing. I loved our products and our clients. But there were so many other factors that wore me out.

I've been reading that discussion on Ed Rants, and... wow. I hear ya on a lot of the static that gets spoken, and on the insanity of what people consider elitist behavior. There are other things more important; it's good to know when to disengage from the fray.

Re boys: I wonder if it is our bias toward fiction that is really the problem. The reason there are more female protagonists is that females read far more fiction than do males, a ratio that holds from adolescence through the twilight years. I think more male protagonists would only mean more unread books, unless they are of the Nick Hornby/John Green sort--male protagonists in books largely favored by girls and women. Just as it is pointless to rant about boys disdaining Maureen Johnston, it is misguided to frame the question as if fiction were the preferred option.

Colleen,

I just nominated Chasing Ray for BBAW

http://bookbloggerappreciationweek.com/index.php/awards

You could read more at Color Online.

Susan I did as well :)

Colleen I'm reading 'The Lizard Cage' right now (political prisoners in Burma), I'm not even finished yet and I feel like I have to do something, I ahve to get involved with the fight to get political prisoners free but aside from donating money and Amnesty I haven't yet hit on a good idea. Is your reading making you want to get more involved in this area? Any good ideas on how?

Re: boys reading female protagonists

We spent a good part of last winter reading the entire Little House series, when my kids were 6 (girl), 6 (boy), and 11 (boy). We were all riveted by this series, well, until Laura went on a little too long about her trousseau at the very end, then the eldest's attention wandered, but so did mine (I think there might have been some abridging going on). And just a few months ago we read The Penderwicks, and again, my eldest LOVED it. But the thing about these books was that I chose them and I read them. I feel pretty confident saying he would have avoided them if left to his own devices, simply because of the covers. Maybe I'm generalizing wildly, but IMO boys tend to be much more conventional in their choices than girls. Girls are okay straying outside boundaries while boys feel compelled to stick to recognizably masculine things (witness the whole "fag" mockery stage they seem to go through just prior to puberty).

i'll be nominating you for Best Blog too!

I think you're spot on with the comment about what/why boys read. My brothers couldn't care less about the protagonist gender, it's the action that they want. They love a kick-butt character, male or female.

And yes, I agree, Colleen deserves a Best Blog nomination!

First, thanks for all the support for the blog guys - much appreciated.

Roger I do agree about the Fic/NF split and I can't remember where but I know that has come up in the past. It is as if there is something wrong with not being drawn primarily to fiction but the I still get way hung up on the covers. If publishers really wanted books to have crossover appeal to boys and girls then they would design YA covers with the same sensibility as MG covers - either with both genders depicted or with a nongender image.

Jodie I've been having similar thoughts and haven't come to any concrete conclusions yet either - although I do think blogging about such books and supporting authors who write them is a good thing we can all do (and relatively easy). More on this later though - as I think about it.

Before you read her latest book, learn a little about her background :
www.peakoil.org.au/news/index.php?esfandiari.htm Is Haleh Esfandiari a CIA asset ?

Oh please.

Roger, Maybe one of the reasons why men aren't big fiction readers is because they didn't get into the habit as boys?

My boys (who do love fiction but still struggle to find enough books that appeal to them to fill the amount of time they'd like to spend reading) have enjoyed quite a few books with girl protagonists which I've read to them (mostly classics like Caddie Woodlawn, the Little House books, Pippi Longstocking) but for their silent reading they're drawn to books about boys a little older than themselves. I would have said the same (or, the opposite) for myself as a girl. I don't think it has anything to do with being bigoted, it has to do with using fiction to explore identity.

Great post! I definetely agree with you about teenaged boys reading books with female protagonists.

--Tashi

Ali, the thing is that, for many males, "using fiction to explore identity" is not something they want to do. As my friend Elizabeth likes to say, "NEVER TRY TO ANALYZE A MAN TO HIMSELF." This is why dick-lit has never taken off among men the way publishers wish it would. A fair amount of novels by men about how it feels to be male DO get written but I think that has more to do with the universal desire to talk about oneself ;-) When it comes to *reading* such books, though, most men don't care. Blow something up, already.

Just home from my recent residency at VCFA and settling back into my routines, so I'm late to the discussion.

Something that's come up is how few men and minorities are involved in our program. We're currently establishing a task force to see what can be done about it, because a school dedicated to writing for children and young adults ought to have more than nine men in it (eleven if you count faculty).

And it would be nice if the faces of editors reflected more men and minorities.

There's a bottom-up v. top-down question regarding how to change things. Do we need to recruit more men into the discussion and writing, or do we need to insist on publishing to set the tenor and tone?

No answers from me, not yet. But I'm out there looking...

For what it's worth David, I know when we were building the roster for Guys Lit Wire I consciously chose to have a certain number of the posters be men - and I've done my best to stick with that. I just didn't see how a site about recommending books for teen boys would be authentic if it didn't have a majority of male reviewers.