Guys and Vols.

A Roundup of Some of This Season's Best Books for Boys

There's a long-running rumor out there that boys don't read. Or that they read only the sports pages, or Harry Potter or Isaac Asimov. Every adult, of course, knows boys who give the lie to this perception, devouring not just fantasy and sf but also thrillers, military history, John Grisham, Tolstoy, even poetry. I know one who got through The Tale of Genji .

Still, there's truth at the heart of the stereotype, which is what prompted Jon Scieszka -- the quintessentially guy-friendly author of The Stinky Cheese Man and the Time Warp Trio series -- to launch his nonprofit literacy initiative, Guys Read, back in 2001. First up was a Web site, www.guysread.com, dedicated to the proposition that any boy (or man) will read if he's matched with the right stuff.

"Boys often have to read books they don't really like," Scieszka wrote. "And what they do like to read, people sometimes tell them is not really reading." Don't give boys only Little House on the Prairie and Charlotte's Web , he urged. Give them Jack Gantos's Joey Pigza or Jim Murphy's An American Plague or any of the other "guy-centric" books recommended on the Web site. And while you're at it, let them know you think wrestling magazines, newspapers, comics, graphic novels and how-to manuals are also respectable reading matter. (It's the reading that matters.)

Now Scieszka has deployed his zeal, knowledge and penchant for lists in editing an anthology, Guys Write for Guys Read (Viking, $16.99; ages 11-up) -- a grab bag of stories, shards of memoir, reflections, advice and drawings by 89 guys who write or illustrate kids' books for a living and think Scieszka might be on to something. The roster is jaw-dropping: Between Lloyd Alexander and Paul O. Zelinsky stand such luminaries as Avi, Bruce Brooks, Eoin Colfer, Daniel "Lemony Snicket" Handler, Brian Jacques, Stephen King, David Macaulay, Gary Paulsen, Richard Peck, William Sleator, Chris Van Allsburg, Mo Willems and . . . you get the idea. A treasure trove, right?

In fact, as a reading experience, Guys Write might prove a bit of a letdown for its target audience. Most 11-plus boys I know would smell the agenda a mile off. (They may not read much, but they know a nanny comes in many guises.) There are some nuggets, certainly: Graham Salisbury's minimalist vignette of a face-off with his mom's 6-foot-4-inch Hawaiian boyfriend, Daniel Pinkwater's humorous portrait of his mother accompanying him across a Midwestern feed lot in tiny high heels and gloves to an advertised appearance of the Lone Ranger, Neil Gaiman's disquisition on "really dangerous books." But a lot of the pieces seem pitched more to adults than kids.

Nevertheless, Guys Write remains both a fabulous resource -- that author list! -- and a useful reminder that if you want to get a boy to read, it helps to try and view things through a boy's eyes. As Scieszka has put it: "Recognize boys' differences and work with these in mind." Suddenly, guy-friendly books will seem to be everywhere.

As if to prove the point, this year's spring lists are bursting with "Boy Books."

For Younger Guys

Dominic, the pink-cheeked, wild-haired toddler-hero of No Haircut Today , by Elivia Savadier (Roaring Brook, $15.95; ages 2-5), does not like to have his hair cut. His well-coiffed mom loves to cut people's hair. Savadier portrays the standoff with pitch-perfect language and spiky drawings -- mostly giant head shots -- that blend funny and fond.

At the start of The Amazing Adventures of Bathman! , by Andrew T. Pelletier, illustrated by Peter Elwell (Dutton, $15.99; ages 3-7), it's a quiet Saturday evening around the house . . . or is it? Actually, there's been a kidnapping in the tub. Good thing Bathman is up to the task of rescuing Rubber Ducky from the clutches of evil Cap'n Squeegee ("Drop that duck!"). A treat for young and old Batman fans alike.

In the clever, funny Once Upon a Cool Motorcycle Dude , by Kevin O'Malley (Walker, $16.95; ages 5-10), a boy and a girl have to tell the class a fairy tale but can't agree on which one. So they make one up, taking turns at narrating, with amusing -- and startling -- results. The illustrations, by O'Malley, Carol Heyer and Scott Goto, are a gleeful clash of styles and stereotypes, with ponies and pink-and-purple-clad princesses jostling for space with malodorous muscle dudes and belching volcanoes.

Like her popular Mazescapes, Roxie Munro's Amazement Park (Chronicle, $16.95) has appeal for many kids who shy away from "regular" reading. My younger son was a picky reader but a big fan of mazes; he's a systems engineer now. At 8 or 9, he would have enjoyed this book-cum-amusement park in the form of a dozen maze/rides, viewed from the air and navigable in two directions.

For Older Guys

The samurai mysteries of Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler are an under-the-radar delight. Set in 18th-century Japan and starring the sagacious Judge Ooka and his fictional 14-year-old stepson Seikei, the series kicked off in 1999 with The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn . In the fourth and latest episode, The Sword That Cut the Burning Grass (Sleuth/Philomel, $10.99; ages 9-12), Seikei finds himself on a mission to rescue the kidnapped teenage emperor. Think Sherlock Holmes in the land of the shoguns.

Avi, the guy with one name and a Newbery Medal, never met an adjective he didn't like. A thesaurus could have written much of The Book Without Words: A Fable of Medieval Magic (Hyperion, $15.99; ages 10-14), a preposterous melodrama of alchemy and avarice set in 11th-century England: "Lichens . . . glowed and winked in the dank and dismal air with a melancholy, phosphorescent hue." But style isn't everything. What makes Avi's books irresistible is the sly delight he takes in his branching plots, bizarre characters and old-Hollywood settings -- here a wonderful gothic mishmash of swamps, graveyards and fog-shrouded alleys.

This season features good YA books for boys in just about every genre. But Shackleton's Stowaway , by Victoria McKernan (Knopf, $15.95; ages 12-up), packs at least three -- history, maritime exploration and disaster epic -- into one truly thrilling yarn. It's the story of Ernest Shackleton's calamitous 1914 Antarctic expedition -- his ship, the Endurance, was crushed by ice and the crew trapped for months -- told from the imagined viewpoint of real-life 18-year-old stowaway Perce Blackborow.

Finally, fans of legal dramas might check out Alex Flinn's intriguing Fade To Black (HarperTempest, $16.99; ages 12-up). Flinn, a former attorney, is also interested in point of view -- or rather the challenges presented when multiple points of view collide. In this tautly constructed novel, an HIV-positive high school student sees his life "fading to black." Then an unknown assailant attacks him in his car, and he suddenly finds himself sifting shades of gray. As the victim, the suspect and the lone witness take turns with the narrative, "truth" and "guilt" grow increasingly elusive. ·

Elizabeth Ward writes the For Young Readers column that appears in Book World every other Sunday.