I am thankful for a father who told me at a young age: "Son, you're not much of a man if you don't read good books and learn from them." Growing up deep in the Appalachian Mountains, "boys" and "books" were words that were not always used together in a very flattering manner. To many of my youthful peers, "bookishness" was a synonym for "geekiness" or worse, "girlyness," and I took no small amount of good-natured ribbing from my baseball teammates for reading Tolkien, Lewis, World War II history or Negro Leagues baseball history while riding the bus to road games. But my father-a "man's man" who fought as a member of the 101st Airborne from D-Day until the end of the Second World War-didn't buy the "geekiness/girlyness" argument. "You learn by reading books," he told me seemingly hundreds of times. "Even God revealed Himself to us in a book."
Today, as the father of two sons, dad's words strike a deep personal cord. Douglas Wilson, in his fine book Future Men, argues correctly that reading is an integral part of biblical manhood. How else, he asserts, will boys learn about dragons and snakes and giants and war-all an integral part of the biblical storyline?
But the culture subtly opposes boys at this point. In her eye-opening book The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men, Christina Hoff Sommers demonstrates that Rousseauian romanticism, in the form of progressive education which centers on building self-esteem and fostering an ultra-subjective creativity, has shifted "away from structured classrooms, competition, strict discipline, and skill-and-fact-based learning." This tectonic shift has been "harmful to all children-but especially boys," she writes. Boys are no longer interested in books in part because many of them don't read well and in part because it requires focus and hard work. But boys must read and Christian fathers, you must put good books in their hands. Why? There are no doubt dozens of reasons, but are a few of the most fundamental:
- Reading good books teaches boys how to communicate clearly, concisely and even powerfully. Boys of the low-rider britches and X-Box generation far too often speak in unintelligible guttural sounds and, like, ya know, um, sentences that, like, torture the language and stuff.
- Reading good books teaches boys how to think in a linear fashion, which, in turn, will help them learn how to properly interpret the storyline of Scripture. It also teaches them how to read critically and how to discern truth from error, logical thinking from illogical thinking.
- Reading good books, particularly thoughtful fiction, fills their imaginations with dragons and giants and castles and swords other characters they will encounter in the unfolding drama of God's redeeming love in Christ. As my father pointed out to me at a tender age, God has revealed Himself in words that tell us about the Incarnate Word. Growth in grace requires a daily encounter with the Gospel which requires meditative reading.
- Reading good books teaches boys how to understand the world around them and prepares them for leadership in the culture, the church and in the home. A boy who reads today and falls in love with God's revealed Word is a future father who will intentionally lead His family in worship at home and in the church.
- Reading good books, particularly about history, helps boys to develop a deeper respect for others as he encounters those who have waged wars against tyranny, reformed churches, laid down their lives for the Gospel, broken down racial barriers and discovered far-fetched lands. My six-year old son grows measurably excited when I tell him we are going to read about guns and canons and knights and ships or tanks and jeeps and fighter planes and bombs and five-star generals and a rescue mission. God has wired him to like these subjects.
What books should boys read? There are hundreds, but tomorrow, I will provide a short list of good books for boys based mostly upon my few years of experience (and personal taste!) as a reading dad.