Daniel Handler: "Want Teenage Boys to Read? Give Them Books About Sex."

Teenage girls read far more than teenage boys. Daniel Handler, author of the Lemony Snicket series and other fantastic tales, has a suggestion on how to increase teen boys' interest in books: more sex in the pages. From Daniel's essay in the New York Times:

It is a gross generalization, of course, to say that what young men want to read about is sex or to imply that the rest of us arent as interested but its also offensive to pretend, when were ostensibly wondering how to get more young men to read, that theyre not interested in the thing we all know theyre interested in. Theres hardly any real sex in young adult books, and when it happens, its largely couched in the utopian dreams or the finger-wagging object lessons of the world we hope for, rather than the messy, risky, delicious and heartbreaking one we live in.

My new novel portrays a young boys emotional, heteroflexible sex life and Id like young people to read it. But its being published for adults, partly because the guardians of young peoples literature get so easily riled up about sex, preferring to recommend, say, books about teenagers slaughtering one another in a post-apocalyptic landscape, rather than books about kids masturbating at home.

To which many would say, so what? Dont we have more important things to worry about than giving sexually explicit literature to young people? Shouldnt we be more concerned about, say, the rampant misogyny of everyday life, in a nation led by a self-admitted sexual predator?

Which to me is precisely the point. I believe in the power of literature to connect, to transform, particularly for young minds beginning to explore the world. I want books to be an unlimited resource for young people and their curiosity, not a sphere restricted by how uncomfortable some curiosities make adults feel.

"Want Teenage Boys to Read? Easy. Give Them Books About Sex."