Should boys read books written by women? Believe it or not, a heated argument is now underway among those who write and publish books for young adults. It seems some believe the teen genre has become too girl-centric. They are actively campaigning for more male editors and writers to create books boys will like.
This debate has been very handy for raising the public profiles of a few male writers. But let's assume that's not what this is all about. If I'm honest, my first reaction to all of this was to swing wildly. I thought we'd got past this years ago.
Then I thought about it more. At the core of all the controversy is the belief that boys want to read books about boys, written by men. Is that really true?
This debate seems to hinge on the perception of girl books as gentle, pink-covered tomes about princesses, and boy books as tough, khaki-wrapped, nail-studded, barbed-wire bound tales of war. But that doesn't reflect what's on the shelves. Most books are a little harder to put neatly into a slot marked "boy" or "girl".
I write the Night School series of young adult books set at a boarding school. I'm a woman and my main character is a 16-year-old girl. In my books, an ensemble cast of male and female characters fight it out – literally – as the children of a secret society at war with itself. In Night School, if you don't fight, you die. Is that a girl book?
Similarly, The Hunger Games was written by a woman about a girl who could shoot you dead with a bow and arrow from 100 yards. A girl in a fight for survival who kills a long list of people in a blood-washed arena. Is that a girl book?
There are many more like these. LA Weatherley's Angel series, about a deadly battle between vicious angels and humans. Sophie McKenzie's Girl, Missing series, about a runaway teen struggling to find out if her adoptive parents might have kidnapped her. Cassandra Clare's Mortal Instruments series, about a shadowy organisation of demon-fighters split by a civil war.
Are these girl books?
I'm sorry. I just don't believe there is any such thing as a girl book. Or a boy book.
Most of all, this debate worries me because of the message it sends to young readers. It's a message of exclusion. If boys like books written by women or about girls, this debate seems to suggest there's something wrong with them. Something lesser.
I cannot tell if the same is true for young women. The "Boys should read Boys" faction seems to lose focus when the subject turns to whether young girls should read books by John Green and Scott Westerfeld. But let's assume for the sake of argument that the backers of literary gender apartheid also think girls should stick to books by and about women.
Consider the fate of young people if they buy into this. Girls would never read F Scott Fitzgerald, JD Salinger, Hemingway, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Tolkien or Vonnegut. Most – if not all – classic Greek and Roman literature would be denied to them. And the Bible.
Boys would be forbidden anything by the Brontes – no Wuthering Heights for them! And they'd get to discover none of Virginia Woolf's post-World War I malaise. No Gertrude Stein to put the 1920s into perspective. No Agatha Christie, Harper Lee or Dorothy Parker. Boys would never read Frankenstein.
Obviously, I think this is a terrible idea. I think everyone's lives would be much, much worse if they were so short-sighted, so foolish, so narrow-minded as to believe we should all only read books about ourselves. I think this is narcissism and sexism of the saddest, most damaging kind.
But what do you think? Do you read books by and about people who are not like you? Do you prefer to read books by and about your own gender? Have you ever read a book about someone who is not just like you?
Join the discussion on Twitter @GdnChildrensBks, on our Teen Facebook page or by emailing childrens.books@theguardian.com. You can also check out the Let Books Be Be Books campaign and sign a petition to stop labelling boys and girls books. You can also read more from CJ on this issue on the Author All Sort blog.
