As the father of two Gen Z boys, I’ve followed with concern the sociological commentary about the struggles of boys their age, particularly those who are having trouble launching and who retain a strong dependence on others. It made me wonder whether middle grade fiction, written for the formative ages of 8–13 (and a category in which I’ve written two novels), might be contributing to the problem.

One aspect of middle grade fiction that I’ve noticed in recent years is that the books often have a female protagonist, and those with boy protagonists also tend to have girl protagonists. According to the analysis of Sam Subity, a data analyst and middle grade author, in 2024, only 30% of middle grade main characters were boys (a number that fell from the prior year), and only 20% of the authors of middle grade books were male. I wondered why that was the case, and so I examined the publishing pipeline. I found that the vast majority of literary agents are women, as are roughly 75% of editors at major publishing houses.

When the 2026 IBPA Book Awards for Middle Grade Fiction were announced, all three winning books, mine included, had boy protagonists. However, when I read the other two books, which were written by women, I noticed a stark difference in how the boy protagonists were treated compared to mine. In Armando and the Amazing Animal Race by Diana Schaffter, Armando succeeds in his race, but only because his friend Jinny, a girl, supplies the research clues. In The Watchwood Inheritance by Ann Huchingson, Peter doesn’t solve the mystery of his inheritance himself. His friend Hadley, a girl, figures it out for him. In both books, the boys cannot succeed without the help of girls.

In my book, Knights Without Ceremony, the boy protagonists succeed on their own. They get into quandaries but manage to figure out their own solutions. They see problems in their world and recognize that they have the power to do something about them. That, I think, is what we adults hope for in the boys in our society. If we want self-reliant men, we need to put books in the hands of boys that show them that they can succeed on their own.

When I think about books that I read as a child, the ones that first come to mind are A Wizard of Earthsea, The Hobbit, A Separate Peace, Lord of the Flies, Where the Red Fern Grows, and How to Eat Fried Worms. In these books, boys make their own decisions and, for better and worse, deal with the consequences. Even in Bridge to Terabithia, a book that has a boy and a girl as protagonists, the girl influences the boy, but his growth comes from within himself. I should note that of these seven books, five were written by men.

Anyone familiar with my bullying prevention work knows I tirelessly champion equality, acceptance, and the scientific fact that gender identity is not binary but falls on a spectrum. I wholly support the idea that all children should be able to find characters in books who are exactly like them, characters in whom they can see themselves. And I believe our society would be much better off with more women in decision-making roles, including in the highest offices.

However, given the falling numbers of boy readers, sociologists’ concerns about Gen Z boys, and the gender imbalance at every stage of the middle grade publishing industry, I wonder if we—writers, agents, editors, publishers, booksellers—have a problem of our own making, one we should fix. We highlight banned books and champion books for marginalized readers. Why not champion the dwindling number of books written specifically for boys? Such books might start with a smaller market and may never make a bestseller list. But they also might reach a few boys who would otherwise put books aside for other forms of entertainment and turn a few of them into lifelong readers, a goal I know we all share.