Boy Books, Girl Books.

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Author: Doiron, Ray

These experiences formed the foundation of my research over the past few years on elementary children's reading preferences. While working as a teacher-librarian and as a classroom teacher, there seemed to be "trends" in boys' and girls' reading choices which were at once very evident and impossible to change. For instance, boys generally chose books about sports, space, science, jokes and vehicles; girls picked picture storybooks and books about horses, cats and crafts as well as novels, particularly ones about friends. Both boys and girls chose books about seasonal holidays and humorous stories; both chose animal books, although with animals, boys really liked sharks, snakes and dinosaurs, while girls liked pets and animals like deer, bears and raccoons.

These observations gave rise to a series of questions: Were these generalizations from my experience true or simply examples of an inherent stereotype? Could the whole issue be reduced to the simple fact that boys prefer information books and girls prefer fiction? How do children's preferences develop and what can we do as adults to affect them? Do boys and girls come wired this way or are we as a culture teaching them to identify themselves in these choices? These questions propelled me into a major research project where I examined the content of elementary classroom libraries across a large school district in my home province. It was evident in that study (Doiron, 1995) that children were presented predominately with fiction paperbacks as reading choices from their classroom libraries. Over 85 percent of the books counted in those classrooms were paperback novels purchased by classroom teachers from book clubs and book fairs. My "informal" study while working as a teacher-librarian in a large elementary school library, plus my discussions with fellow teacher-librarians, suggested many students preferred information books when they came to the school library. Counts from my school library automated circulation indicated that students were choosing twice as many information books as novels.

In addition, a second study I completed of school libraries across my province (Doiron & Davies, 1996) indicated that elementary school library collections broke down into 60 percent fiction (combined novels and easy fiction books) and 40 percent information books (trade books only). This was just the opposite of what our provincial guidelines suggested as a normal balance in an elementary school library. Either the guidelines established by our Department of Education (and evident in other national jurisdictions) were wrong or we were adding more fiction books than recommended. When the findings from the two studies were combined, the indications were that elementary students were given primarily fiction books to choose from for their reading. In order to identify what book types boys and girls were choosing for their independent reading when they came to the school library, I completed a third study in three large elementary schools. If these children preferred to take information books and, as educators we were presenting them with more fiction books from which to choose, it would have implications for instruction and for future book selection.

In this three-year study, I asked teacher-librarians to track all books signed out by students in Grades 1-6. This was done through an informal data gathering sheet on which a research assistant recorded the sex of each student, grade level, the number of fiction and number of information books signed out, the subject area of the information book choices and whether the books were for independent reading or school work. Only books identified as chosen for students' personal or independent reading were included in the data.

Other choices were assumed to be part of classroom projects or required reading set by the teacher and thus were not free book choices. More than 10,000 transactions were analyzed by grade level, gender and book type. There are some general things I can report to you so far.

• First of all, the students signed out more fiction than information books. The split was about 60 percent fiction to 40 percent nonfiction.

• Broken down by gender, the data indicates girls are taking more books out than boys, but not in significantly different numbers.

• Broken down by book type (fiction and information), boys signed out 1.029 fiction books and 0.753 information books per transaction. Girls signed out 1.405 fiction books and 0.449 information books per transaction.

• Boys took out over two-thirds of all information books signed out, with less than one-third taken out by girls.

It's obvious from these three studies that elementary children are telling us something in the book choices they are making. Both boys and girls enjoy reading stories including novels and easy fiction books with boys choosing 1.029 fiction books each and girls choosing 1.405 fiction books each. As educators, it appears we are doing a good job of presenting and promoting the reading of fiction. In fact, the studies indicated that we are presenting elementary children with many fiction choices both in our classroom libraries and in our school libraries from which to develop their reading interests. However, the third study indicated that when it comes to information books, there is a serious gender difference in the number of information books chosen by students for independent reading, with boys choosing 0.753 books each and girls 0.449 information books each. Girls were three times as likely to choose a fiction book as an information book (1.405 fiction to 0.449 information books), while boys were only 1.3 times more likely to choose fiction over information books (1.029 fiction to 0.753 information books). This strikes me as a serious imbalance in the reading choices girls are making. Boys clearly choose fiction and information books in a more equitable way, so we seem to be doing a good job of encouraging them to balance their reading choices. Girls however, were less likely to choose an information book, while they were in fact shown to be choosing slightly more books overall than boys. Girls seem to need more encouragement to balance their reading choices.

As educators, this suggests several things. We need to re-examine the way we use fiction and information books in all aspects of our literacy programs. Clearly we need to encourage boys to do more reading just as a matter of good literacy promotion, while we need to encourage girls to be more balanced in their reading choices and to add information books to the book choices they make. This may be particularly important at Grades 3 and 4 where there seems to be a great deal of interest in information books. We should be promoting information books in a big way at this age and we should be using them to directly teach many literacy skills. If children have a strong preference for information at this time in their elementary programs, we need to capitalize on it and use it to promote reading and the use of their school libraries. We should model the reading of information books and promote their inclusion in classroom libraries and on visits to the school library. Let's do book-talks, read-alouds, author studies, book displays and the many other things we do to promote reading; only let's use information books.

There are groups of educators who suggest we should be using a more balanced approach for the use of fiction and information books in our literacy programs. Reese & Harris (1997) see there is a "power and beauty" in using information books with young readers. Others suggest we need to encourage teachers to read aloud information books to balance their reliance on fiction (Oyler & Barry, 1996; Doiron, 1994). The use of information texts as part of writing programs is also seen as crucial in developing young writers who can create writing for a wide variety of purposes (Stead, 2002).

It is also important for teachers to get excited about information books themselves, because children will mirror that enthusiasm (Roser & Firth, 1983). The teacher-librarian may have a particularly important role to play here by encouraging teachers to become more familiar with information books and to show them how these books can be used effectively in programs that encourage reading. Many classroom teachers are not comfortable with information books and the teacher-librarian can show leadership here as well, by including information books as part of curriculum planning sessions, reading aloud programs and other literacy activities aimed at supporting classroom literacy programs.

So to return to my original title and the questions that gave rise to my research projects, I guess I would have to say, yes, there are "boy books" and "girl books." There are books targeted especially for stereotypical views of boys and girls. But I don't believe the differences break down completely along the fiction/ information book divide. As educators, we are definitely working with some stereotypical views ourselves and we need to examine how we are using fiction and information materials in our programs. Do we see reading for pleasure as predominately reading stories and novels? Can we not get pleasure from reading good quality information books? Do we see information books solely as resources we go to when we do research or have an information problem?

I think the children in these studies have taught me that we need to watch them carefully and they will quickly show us that they like information books a great deal and they want to read them. We need to re-examine what it means to read so that browsing through a book, stopping at things that catch our attention, reading captions, looking at pictures and visual materials are all ways of reading. If this type of reading was not pleasurable we would have no such thing as "coffee table" books or the successful Eyewitness series or biographies, magazines and cleverly engineered books. Reading is reading and when we motivate people to read we need to be sure that we are helping them find materials they are interested in reading and that we are not telling them that fiction is "better" to read than information books. Remember, there is no accounting for people's taste and as teacher-librarians we must provide our students with the best quality examples of all types of texts and then celebrate everything they ever read.

??? Doiron, R. (1994). Using nonfiction in a read-aloud program: Letting the facts speak for themselves. The Reading Teacher, 47 (8), 616-624.

??? Doiron, R. (1995). The relationship between elementary classroom collections and the school library resource centre program. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC.

??? Doiron, R., & Davies, J. (1996). Reflection and renewal in Prince Edward Island school libraries. Provincial research study prepared for the Department of Education, Charlottetown, PEI.

??? Oyler, C., & Barry, A. (1996). Intertextual connections in read-alouds of information books. Language Arts, 73, 324-329.

??? Reese, D.A., & Harris, V.J. (1997). "Look at this nest!" The beauty and power of using informational books with young children. Early Child Development and Care, 127, 217-231.

??? Stead, T. (2002). Is that a fact? Teaching non-fiction writing. Markham, ON: Pembroke Publishers.