Book Review: Pam Allyn’s Best Books for Boys

Pam Allyn's Best Books For Boys: How To Engage Boys in Reading in Ways That Will Change Their Lives

Review by Chris Singer

About the author:

Pam Allyn is the Executive Director of LitLife and LitWorld, nationally and internationally known literacy development organizations that provide innovative, results-driven literacy strategy support for grades pre-K-12. She is the Founding Director of Books for Boys, an award winning reading initiative. Pam is the author of two books, The Complete 4 for Literacy and the 2010 National Parenting Magazine Award Winner What to Read When (read a Book Dads review). She is also the co-author of The Complete Year in Reading and Writing series, K–5.

About the book:

Get all boys reading with this extraordinary guide—chock-full of a wide range of must-read titles organized by interest, age, and development. With this resource in hand, you'll never again struggle to find the right book for even your most reluctant readers. The carefully chosen book selections are accompanied by brief explanations of each book, and a recurring feature, Talk About It, will help you extend the book through conversation, supporting and enhancing the reading experience. In addition, ready-to-use lessons align with themes and topics of special interest to boys that will motivate and inspire them to read more. Finally, Pam answers your most pressing questions about the challenges for boys as readers and shows you how you can maximize environments, routines, and structures to ensure that boys are reading widely and passionately. For use with Grades K-8.

My take on the book:

I know few people more passionate about literacy than Pam Allyn. I reviewed her last book What To Read When last year and still refer to it before every visit to our local library.

In her latest book, Pam focuses on books for boys. And for good reason. She begins her book taking a look at why we should be focusing on boys literacy. According to recent studies, whether boys become readers or not has huge societal implications. Some of the statistics mentioned are staggering. For example, boys who are nonreaders are twice as likely to become incarcerated than boys who are readers.

But why are illiteracy rates for boys so out of control? Allyn goes on to discuss a myriad of reasons including preconceptions and stereotypes about boys, stringent classroom rules and standards, educational testing policies, and simply not asking what boys want to read. The question and answer section which followed was my favorite part of the book. Although I don't have a son, this section really made me look at this questions from a different perspective and I felt myself thinking these same ideas work with girls as well. As an avid read aloud advocate myself, I was thrilled to see Pam's answer to the question of when should you stop reading aloud ("Never!").

While I think this book was written mostly for educators, I really believe parents will find this an invaluable resource for themselves as well. It's well-written and easy to read. Like What To Read When, Best Books for Boys is also very well organized with the book recommendations being broken down by genre and reading level.

I hope dads will take an interest in this book. Dads play such a huge role in getting their children interested in reading and it's hard to find a better reading role model for boys than their dad (I have to say I think that works for girls as well!) All in all, this is a fantastic resource and worthy of your time.