Erin reads the LA Times: pre-Thanksgiving edition

Thus far in my Times reading:

"[A] very surprised William T. Vollmann received a National Book Award for fiction for his widely praised novel Europe Central," a book on my "to read" list; another likely future read, Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, also won honors. In the same article Anne-Marie O'Connor considers whether book awards have become too commercialized to be meaningful anymore.

Norman Mailer nevertheless made an impassioned defense of recognizing literature:

Mailer said it is important to celebrate the kind of serious literature that has imbued societies with powerful but intangible rewards, but is endangered today.

"Would England be a great nation without William Shakespeare?" Mailer asked. "Would Ireland be entering a period of prosperity today without James Joyce?"

But before boys get to be Mailers (hopefully without the bad attitude about women), they have to grow up readers. And shockingly enough, they have their own book clubs. A Virginia middle school has launched Club BILI (Boys in Literacy Initiative), with boy-friendly selections. The goal?

to help close the literacy achievement gap between boys and girls. The club focuses on books that appeal specifically to boys and includes read-aloud sessions, visits to elementary schools to promote reading, and trips to see movies based on the books they read.

On average, boys score seven to 11 points lower than girls on standardized reading comprehension tests. The discrepancy isn't limited to the United States — a study by the University of York in Britain found it exists in 22 countries. Scientists say boys are born with biological differences that make them read later than girls, though they eventually catch up. Boys also have a harder time sitting still for long periods, studies show.

Prevailing attitudes toward reading don't help.

"Society has created an aura about reading that it's a girl thing and it doesn't fit into adolescents' persona," said Jodie Peters, a reading peer coach at the school who co-founded Club BILI after coming upon a book about the gap called "Reading Don't Fix No Chevys." "We want to fight that."

It also turns out that the available reading in schools doesn't appeal to boys: Teacher and co-founder Rob Murphy noted that "the boys really hated the books that we were making them read in classrooms. There were a lot of female protagonists, and it was hard for them to make the connection with some of the plot lines."

It's too bad to think that youth reading ends up gender segregated, but it's better than the kids not reading at all. And fortunately, there's always Harry Potter...