The Truth About Boys and Reading

Author Q&A: Boy Talk With Conn Iggulden

We asked Conn Iggulden, coauthor of the bestseller The Dangerous Book for Boys, to weigh in on what it’s going to take to get boys reading.

Q: You’ve said that fathers were instrumental in the book’s success in the U.K. and that the book was an effort to help them better nurture their boys’ sense of adventure. The book is about adventure and danger—exactly what boys want to read about. Were you aware of that when you wrote it?

A: I was a teacher for seven years and saw a fair few examples of the sort of feeble books boys are expected to enjoy in school. The assumption of the last thirty years has been that boys and girls are interested in the same kind of book. They’re not. They never were. The vast majority of men won’t read Jane Austen unless we are physically held down. If there absolutely has to be a message, let it be one about duty, honor, courage, and self-reliance. We love all that. One character standing in for a friend about to be executed is worth a thousand dull school lectures on friendship and community.

Q: What did you read as a boy?

A: As a kid, I loved science fiction and adventure stories, Greek myths, Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, David Gemmell, historical fiction like the Sharpe books and the Flashman books. I had every Willard Price book and used to trade them in primary school. I loved Roald Dahl enough even to read his weird, adult Uncle Oswald books that hardly anyone knows. I read John Buchan adventures, Biggles books, Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven books, the Jennings books, and pretty much anything else that involved a plucky boy standing up against terrible odds. Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household is still one of my favorite books of all time and for confident readers, Three Men in a Boat is too funny for me to read in public.

Q: Has reading been an issue with your son? Is reading something you two share?

A: He loves books and reads ones with titles like Horrid Henry. I’ve read to him from the first time I could be sure he wouldn’t vomit on me. He’s only six, but he liked Enid Blyton’s Magic Faraway Tree very much and reads very well on his own. It’s impossible to know how much has come from me and how much from his teachers, but before I ever read to him I told him stories like Jack and the Beanstalk and The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Telling stories without a book is a great place to start. To say “boys don’t read” as if it’s some kind of universal truth is to miss the point completely. We do read. We just don’t want to read that.

Great Books For Boys

Jurassic Poop: What Dinosaurs (and Others) Left Behind by Jacob Berkowitz. This study of fossilized dino dung shows how much we can learn from what ancient animals left behind. Literally. (Ages 9–12)

How Underwear Got Under There: A Brief History by Kathy Shaskan. The history of drawers, pantaloons, and everything below examines the science and social implications of what were once our “unmentionables.” (Ages 4–8)

Heroes Don’t Run: A Novel of the Pacific War by Harry Mazer. The final installment in a trilogy about a boy who becomes a young man during World War II follows its hero into battle. (Ages 9–12)

The Making of Dr. Truelove by Derrick Barnes. A story about a sixteen-year-old boy’s failed romance with his lifelong crush. (Young adults)

Admiral Richard Byrd: Alone in the Antarctic by Paul Rink. The chronicle of Admiral Richard Byrd’s lonely existence on the bottom of the earth. (Ages 9–12)

Camel Rider by Prue Mason. Two boys—one Australian, the other Arab—try to overcome insurmountable odds and make their way out of a desert wilderness. (Ages 10–14)