The question of why (some) boys don’t read is part of the much thornier question of who (some) boys want to be: You can give a boy a tutu — and please do — but some of them are going to whip it off their waists and turn it into a frilly pink war headdress. Often the books that most appeal to male kids are literally discounted: Parents mistakenly believe that sci-fi books don’t count as reading, that gross-out books don’t count as reading, that nonfiction books crammed with football statistics don’t count as reading. Instead, boys are steered toward traditional narrative fiction and asked to sit on the prairie with Laura Ingalls Wilder.
“I got e-mail from parents and teachers early on, saying ‘This is the first book that my reluctant reader has ever read,’ ” says Jeff Kinney, author of the “Wimpy Kid” series. “I’ve since come to realize that their ‘reluctant readers’ were just regular boys.”
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So will American boys be interested in “Boys Camp”?
Tripp, Thomas and Jenkins think so. Their books are the opposite of raunchy — but to the argument that boys want boogers, not bonding, they argue that they’ve got a couple of sons at home who are already on board. These boys, they say, would love to read books with gentler humor, books where the male protagonists occasionally cried, books with all of the heart of the “American Girl” series. But, you know, for dudes.
There are some notable differences between the two projects. Unlike the “American Girl” books, “Boys Camp” isn’t a historical series. Camp Wolf Trail, where the books are set, is a modern locale, based on a real summer camp in Maryland. The characters are all loosely related cabin mates. The volume written by Tripp features an Indian American tennis phenom named Vik, who feels pressured to succeed in a sport he’s no longer sure he loves. His new friends teach him to play basketball instead, and Vik’s story becomes about the balance between finding success at something and finding joy in it. Other planned books feature a city slicker who hopes his book learning will compensate for real-world inexperience and a cutup who’s afraid that people won’t like the shy kid inside.
Tripp has tapped a team of writers to write the individual books — a planned total of six. So far, the women have stories but no publishing plan. They have a logo but no book covers to put it on. The “American Girl” books are published by the Pleasant Company, an independent corporation with which Tripp is not officially affiliated. As a result, Team Boys Camp is exploring both traditional and self-publishing, making the rounds at book fairs and chatting up the concept to anyone who will listen.
A lot of people are listening, they say. “We started as a raindrop,” Tripp says, “but it’s joined with others,” and now she hopes they’re becoming a waterfall. “A lot of people are talking about this.”
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