If Your Son Hates to Read, You Are Not Alone
And that's a serious problem.
Standardized tests across America reveal a shocking statistic: boys lag behind girls in every aspect of reading, from vocabulary to comprehension.
Making matters worse is a continuous cascade of video games, smart phones, and streaming television. The lockdown certainly didn't help.
For nearly ten years, I taught upper-elementary and middle-school boys. Many of them—including my youngest son—hated to read. Bright boys. Highly curious. Primed for adventure. And completely uninterested in books.
These boys wanted “guy stuff.”
My wife grew very worried about our son's book avoidance. Since I've spent decades studying military history, she urged me to start writing about historic battles for him. She then edited the chapters for his 4th-to-5th grade reading level. (Military history can get highly technical).
The Batttle of Stalingrad.
D-Day Invasion.
Battle of the Bulge...
Our son devoured these "chapters." He even started asking if we could visit the library to get more books!
Our son's transformation into reading-for-fun launched the Great Battles for Boys series. We knew other families had this same struggle with their sons. We wanted to help them.
Today, the Great Battles for Boys series has earned more than 5,000 rave reviews—many from boys themselves.
“I am 8 years old and I love this series. I have been using some of the battle strategies that you talk about in the books against my mom in Laser Tag. I love how you put the links at the end of each chapter…. I can’t wait for more of these great books!”
Just as the American Girl series highlighted history for young-female audiences, Great Battles for Boys reveals the wonders of reading and history to young male audiences.
Why do boys enjoy these books? Action-packed chapters. Conversational tone—nothing like a text book. And amazing historic images. But military history also offers excellent examples of strong leadership, true courage, innovative engineering, strategic thinking, geography…the list goes on and on.
“It felt like a chore to get him to read. Now that he’s discovered military history and your series, he reads for 45 minutes stretches at a time… Please keep writing!”