The predominance of books available that are targeted to girls is an argument I always make when the subject of “Why Boys Don’t Read” comes up. It’s a reason I started writing my Red Racecar novels set in the worlds of motorsports. And I’ve had more than one parent tell me “My son always said he hated reading. But he wouldn’t put (insert book-title here) until he’d finished it.”
Still, the best reason I have to write a story is to be part of it, to witness it. As the author Ian McKuen put it, “I write to find out what happens.”
I’d thought about a story featuring a goalie, but a girl who played goal. Hockey, hard, rough and fast, demanded special skills just to play the sport, and a bit of courage to play the position of goalie. And I knew girls who did it. My own daughter had played with and against boys from inside the crease. Never mind Rhode Island’s own Sara DeCosta-Hayes, the first goalie to beat the boys of the state’s vaunted powerhouse, Mt. St. Charles Academy, in a state-championship-game before going on to win a gold-medal for the U.S. women in the Olympics (and please, it’s girls hockey up to high school, women after high school. Just like it’s boys in high school and men after that.).
I’d also witnessed young boys playing hockey with and against girls. I’d listened to parents make excuses for their outplayed sons, but I’ve also seen boys accept girls playing with and against them – as soon as the girls demonstrated they could get the job done.
But the question for me soon will be how I can get the finished story into the hands of the girls reading all those vampire-romances. I can’t wait to take the new book to some in-person shows once it’s done just to see the reactions of potential readers. I also wonder if boys can accept a female protagonist if the story takes place in a world they already inhabited or wished they could. Will they be as open-minded off the ice as they’ve proven to be on it?