Why boys need to read about strong female characters too

Anushka Mehrotra at Scholastic, the specialist educational publisher, asks whether there is such a thing as a book for girls.

To celebrate the Year of Reading, The National has teamed up with Scholastic, the specialist educational publisher, to give away more than 40,000 books to schoolchildren. To find out more and enter the weekly draw to win, visit www.thenational.ae/uaereads. Each week a member of the Scholastic family will share their thoughts about encouraging children to read:

Last week, I overheard a woman in a book shop saying, as she put down a book: “The main character is a girl, he won’t want to read that.”

Her comment shocked me. Why wouldn't a mother encourage her son to read books with female protagonists? Growing up, I read everything from the Harry Potter series to A Series of Unfortunate Events and the Captain Underpants books, to dozens of Jacqueline Wilson novels and, not once, did I feel like any of them were geared more towards boys than girls.

Caroline Paul, the author of The Gutsy Girl: Escapades for Your Life of Epic Adventure, agrees. In 'Why boys should read girl books', an opinion piece for the discussion forum ideas.ted.com, Paul wrote: "We read to experience a panoply of perspectives. We read to learn of people and situations outside and beyond ourselves, so we can deepen our connection and understanding. We read to prepare for life. It follows, then, that we are raising our boys to dismiss other people's experiences, and to see their needs and concerns as the center of things."

She goes on to say that boys who don’t read books with characters who are different from themselves grow up to lack empathy.

It’s an opinion with which children’s author Elizabeth Bluemie agrees, as she writes in Publishers Weekly:

"... we do a huge disservice to our children and their ability to grow into compassionate, thoughtful, empathetic adults when we steer them away from things we think of as 'belonging' to the other gender. "If The Hunger Games had featured Katniss on the cover instead of a gold medallion against a black background, sales to boys would have been fractional. This is a frustrating truth. And it's our fault. We steer kids—no, we steer boys—away from stories they might respond to from a very early age."

So, it’s up to parents and teachers to assert the universality of books regardless of the gender and sex of the protagonist ... or the author. But how?

For starters, you can recommend great books with female characters to boys and girls alike.

To help, here’s a list of children’s books selected by the Scholastic team that feature female protagonists that are perfect for the sons, brothers, nephews and grandsons in your life:

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (Age 9-12)

The Story of Tracy Beaker by Jacqueline Wilson (Age 8-12)

Matilda by Roald Dahl (Age 8-12)

Coraline by Neil Gaiman (Age 9-12)

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (Age 9-12)

The Girls to the Rescue series by Bruce Lansky (Age 8-12)

Flora and Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures by Kate DiCamillo (Age 8-12)

The Nancy Drew books by Carolyn Keene (Age 10-12)

Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh (Age 9-12)

Dear Dumb Diary series by Jim Benton (Age 8-12)

The Ramona Quimby series by Beverly Cleary (Age 7-10)

The Babysitters Club series by Ann M. Martin (Age 8-12)

Sisters and Smile by Raina Telgemeier (Age 9-12)

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (Age 9-12)

The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins (Age 13 +)

The Colors of Madeleine trilogy by Jaclyn Moriarty (Age 12 +)

Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan (Age 8-12)

A version of this article first appeared on the blog On Our Minds@Scholastic. Anushka Mehrotra is a corporate communications assistant at Scholastic. Born and Raised in Mumbai, India, Mehrotra is a complete Harry Potter fangirl and all round bookworm.