Do boys really lag behind girls in reading? Educators read the studies and disagree.

Some say the "boy crisis" is a myth, a backlash against the women's movement which feeds the media thirst for looming disasters.

No boy will read for fun if he finds the material boring. Much of the assigned reading for young ages has little appeal to boys, who look for action and adventure as well as fact-based and how-to literature, writes Emily Bazelon of Slate.

Boys read on a need-to-know basis, Bazelon writes. "They don't set out looking for story and relationship."

Here's the list culled from Parenting reader suggestions, divided into picture books, books for early-elementary, late-elementary and middle-school-and-beyond readers, comic books and magazines.

We've only skimmed the surface of written words appealing to boys.

You can help this page grow by e-mailing what your boys are reading to parenting@washingtonpost.com.