OPINION: What If Boys Like the “Wrong” Kind of History?
Great Battles for Boys: a delightfully countercultural book series.
By Rick Hess
SENIOR FELLOW AND DIRECTOR, EDUCATION POLICY STUDIES AT AEI
I get a fair number of inquiries from parents and grandparents asking about education-y Christmas presents as an alternative to giving a kid a gift card, iPhone, iPad, or new gaming console. Well, one of my go-to recommendations for boys in K-8 is the oversized paperbacks that constitute the Great Battles for Boys series. The series includes titles like Great Battles for Boys: The Korean War, Great Battles for Boys: The American Revolution, and Great Battles for Boys: WW2 Europe.
I find the whole thing delightfully countercultural. I mean, who writes about military strategy or history today? Who unabashedly markets stuff to boys (other than weird manosphere ragebait)? The books, all published since 2014, are authored by history teacher Joe Giorello. They all run about 150 to 250 pages and feature straightforward text, anecdotes, pictures, maps, and suggestions for further reading.
When I first encountered the series a year and a half ago, after never having heard of Giorello, I was curious how his handiwork was faring in the larger world. The answer? Very well. Four of the top ten titles on Amazon’s “Children’s American History” list come from Giorello’s Great Battles for Boys series. His volume on the Civil War is #1 in “Children’s American Civil War Era History Books.” His book on the Revolutionary War is #1 in “Children’s American Revolution History.” The books boast thousands of enthusiastic, five-star reviews.
And yet, like I said, I’d never heard of Giorello until last year. When I went poking around, wondering how I’d missed him, I couldn’t find a single mention of him in School Library Journal, Education Week, the National Council for the Social Studies, or the National Council for History Education. Even now, I still can’t find any mention of him on these sites (other than where I’ve written about him).
His stories are interesting, but the narrative is straightforward, with no gimmickry or multimedia pizzazz. It’s just workmanlike, accessible history. For instance, the chapter on “The Battle of Britain” in WW2 Europe begins:
By June 1940, Germany had achieved a victory in Norway, but the win came at a steep cost. The battle had damaged or sunk over half of Germany’s warships.
This loss was crucial. Hitler desperately wanted to conquer Great Britain, but with half his fleet out of commission, the German navy was no match for the powerful British Royal Navy.
Hitler decided he would conquer Britain by air.
Accessible but hardly scintillating prose.
So, what’s going on? Why have these books been such a silent success? The most salient explanation may be the frank, unapologetic decision to offer books about “great battles for boys” in an era when that’s largely absent from classrooms and when the publishing industry has actively turned against such works.
This may simply be the kind of history that a lot of boys can’t find but are eager to read. Of course, even penning that sentence can feel remarkably risqué nowadays, which may be a big part of the problem.
It got me thinking. My elementary-age kids have brought home or been assigned a number of children’s books on history. Most are focused intently on social and cultural history. I’ll be honest. Even as someone who’s always been an avid reader, I find a lot of that stuff tedious. As a kid, I found books about the Battle of Midway or D-Day vastly more interesting than grim tales of teen angst. I don’t think that makes me unusual. Moreover, it surprises no one (except the occasional ideologue) to learn that girls generally appear more interested in fiction than boys—or that boys tend to prefer reading about sports, war, comedy, and science fiction, while girls favor narratives about friendship, animals, and romance.
Today, when I peruse classroom libraries, recommended book lists, or resources like the summer reading suggestions from the American Library Association, I don’t see much that seems calculated to appeal to boys.
One reason that boys read less than girls may be that we’re not introducing them to the kinds of books they might like. There was a time when schools really did devote too much time to generals and famous battles, but we’ve massively overcorrected. Indeed, “diverse, inclusive” reading lists tend to feature authors who may vary by race and gender but overwhelmingly pen introspective, therapeutic tales that read like an adaptation of an especially heavy-handed afterschool special.
Now, my point is not that kids should read this rather than that. Schools should be exposing all students to more fiction and nonfiction, with varied topics and themes. If that requires assigning more reading, well, good.
There are also well-meaning educators and advocates who approach book selection as an extension of social-emotional learning. Heck, as I wrote this column, I got a marketing email from the nonprofit I Would Rather Be Reading, which uses “trauma responsive literacy support and social-emotional learning to help children.” I’m sure it’s a lovely organization, but I rather doubt any of the books in question feature stoic virtues or manly courage. After all, the therapeutic set has worked hard to define traditional masculinity as “toxic.” All of which can alienate kids who find the therapy-talk unduly precious or rife with adult pathologies.
I hear from plenty of educators who say they’re reluctant to talk about the needs of boys for fear of being labeled reactionary. I can’t help but suspect that more boys might develop a taste for reading if they encountered more of the kinds of books they actually enjoy. I’d take more seriously the argle-barge about inclusive reading lists if this extended to the well-being of those students bored by social-justice-themed tracts.
If the goal is to turn every child into an avid reader, it’s useful to embrace a mix of books that’ll speak to every learner—including those about “great battles for boys.”
This post originally appeared on the blog Old School with Rick Hess at Education Next.
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The Giorello invisibility is striking. A series dominating multiple Amazon categories yet completely absent from educational discourse suggests how narrow the gatekeeping has become. The overcorrection away from military history feels less like pedagogical evolution and more like ideological pruning. When kids are actively choosing these books outside the curriculum, maybe the lesson is that interest-driven reading beats prescriptive diversity every time.