I was reading an Associated Press article in the Washington Post that boys lag far behind girls in reading and that books about farts may level the playing field.
That sounds about right.
And yet - as a former girl - there is something that makes me feel oddly squeamish about that analysis.
I chickened out about putting fart in the title of this post. What would my Twitter friends think?
But that's the point. This isn't about me. It's about the boys.
There's plenty of evidence in my house that the publishing industry is on to something.
Just this morning, my eldest who was home from camp with a sore throat, yelled from the couch.
"Hey mom! Wanna see me make my leg fart?" (Envision the armpit fart behind he knee.)
My youngest constantly walks through the house saying, "I passed gas" in response to unrelated questions like, "How are you?"
Before the Post article revelation, my boys were living the dream. Their favorite bed time stories were "Walter the Farting Dog" and "Dr. Dog"
Walter's bad gas foiled a burglary and Dr. Dog's grandfather patient had so much gas his house exploded.
So I have accepted that we are not a "Make Way for Ducklings" house and I stopped taking offense when they and their father make fun of my favorite girl book, "The Lonely Doll." And I will treasure the quiet time I recently instituted to cultivate good reading habits even when the book cracked is not my first choice but theirs.
As best selling author James Patterson said in the AP article: "I think it can turn around for a lot of kids. Parents have to take the responsibility seriously. Schools need to be more practical, meaning they need to understand that reading lists are tremendously important but you have to put books on it that the kids are going to respond to," he said. "Reading is such a necessary thing to take you through life."
And farts, after all, are a natural part of life.
So why not read about them?
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