Beating a Dead Horse (Sorry, Jody!)

not a real dead horse, of course. I would never forgive myself, though I do remember a time when I threatened Abe (psycho horse from hell) with the glue factory.

Two days ago, my daughter and I went to the local B & N bookstore. I have no qualms at spending $$ on books. I love books. My daughter likes books--specific authors only at this point in her life--third grade, yanno. She wanted a Judy Moody book. Did they have any in stock? NO. But they did have about twenty to twenty-five copies of Stink books (Judy's brother).

Minor rant to follow. This is just my opinion as I do not have any data to back up my stance on this topic.

insert rant: I KNOW publishers/parents/agents/editors want to encourage boys at this age to read. I'm all over that. I totally agree and loved it when J.K. Rowling did what no one had been able to do--she got a whole generation of children to take an interest in reading. More to the point, boys started reading. And this was prior to my personal interest in middle grade (pre-child and pre-writing of middle grade novels).

But while the interest is focused on encouraging boys to read, they are forgetting about girls--girls who already read and want more. My daughter doesn't want to read about Stink. But I understand why boys wouldn't want to be caught dead carrying around a book labelled Judy Moody or Junie B. Jones. It isn't because the protagonist is female, it's because of the 'girl' title.

I conducted an unofficial survey of third grade boy's reading material. It covers a wide range of topics, and many of the books feature a female protagonist. Boys at this age don't care who the main character of the story is, they just want a good story. The key is not to use a 'girl' name in the title of the book, or series title. The Magic Treehouse books feature Annie and Jack, sister and brother. Both of the characters have roles in each story. Inkheart is one other example. Female protag. Excellent adventure.

I think this topic irritates me because I'm trying to generate agent interest in my story, MISSING: One Garden Gnome. Generic title, but female protag. I just got a rejection on one of the partials. Though the agent was interested, he couldn't think of any editor who would enjoy this novel. Okay. I get it. It isn't about me, but about the story.

But it does make me wonder if it is because I have a female protag and not a male one.

When I started collecting names of agents to query, there were quite a few of them who wanted middle-grade novels with a strong male protagonist. Yeah, I subbed to those agents--but will probably get an auto rejection. Trends change. I'll still write my female protag, but I would like to think this story would be a good read for a boy just as much as a girl.

Do you have an opinion on the topic?
Do you have a boy who won't read a book because the protag is a girl? If so, what age is he?
What type of books does he read?