Boys leading the best seller lists
Here it is! For reals! Palace of Stone at #8 on the NYT best seller list. Wahoo! Thank you SO MUCH to those who bought the book early. It really makes a difference for a book's overall success if it's launched well.
It was interesting looking over all the children's best seller lists. Like most female children's/YA writers I know, I've been asked many times why I don't write books for boys. (My answer is: but I do. Why don't some boys read books about girls?) There is a crisis in reading. Boys aren't reading as much as girls and are suffering academically for it. I love that this is being addressed and questioned. But I wonder why books that have female main characters are seen as part of the problem.
I also hear over and over again that there just aren't enough "boy" books and books about boys. Look at this week's NYT best seller lists and the ratios of male:female authors.* [EDIT: whoops, I write it out wrong the first time. Now it reads correctly, e.g. 8 male authors: 2 female authors.]
Children's paperback - 8:2
Series books - 8:2
Children's chapter books- 7:3
Children's picture books - 9:1
I love to see a lot of men in children's books. It's wonderful! But I don't see the paucity that some are worried about. 80% of the current best sellers are written by men. Does anyone know, are the best seller lists not representative of what's published over all? Are, say, 80% of books published by/about girls, even while 80% of the best sellers are by/about boys? I don't know those stats but I'd be curious to learn.
Now please keep posting your great photos of boys reading "girl" books! Loving the entries. Some of these are really going to make you laugh. Let's give the contest a couple more weeks. And I'll post about the book tour soon.
*I looked at this just by author gender. There are a couple of books by men that have female main characters, and a couple of books by women that have male main characters. But overall, the best sellers are 80% male-led. Not a criticism, just the facts, and I like to look at facts and wonder about them.