Newberys about Boys Who Don’t Want to Do Classic Boy Things

[osprey_archer]

I do intend to write about The Problem of Tomboys eventually, but the post is languishing as I struggle to come to terms with the massive amount of material. So in the meantime, I’m writing the companion post about Boys Who Don’t Want to Do Classic Boy Things, a topic to which far fewer Newbery books are devoted, presumably because the general cultural attitude is Who Wouldn’t Want to Do Classic Boy Things? Boy Things Are the Best Things To Do.

In fact, I only found two books that really fit the bill, and in both cases the Boy Thing that our Boy does not want to Do is killing. In Mari Sandoz’s The Horsecatcher (1958), our hero Elk has no interest in becoming a warrior. He wants to become a horsecatcher, which is still valuable and manly work but something you’re supposed to do alongside warrioring, rather than instead of.

Although circumstances conspire to force Elk to kill a raider, proving that he can kill and thus raising his status in the community, he remains true to his own path, traveling far and wide to meet other horsecatchers and learn their secrets. At one point he meets a pair of sisters who are famous for their horse-training skills, who plan when they marry to marry the same man: “We marry together.”

Because it’s 1958 the book of course does not SAY that in a few years time, the sisters marry Elk. But I like to think that sometime after the book ends, the three of them are happily married and surrounded by horses.

The second book is Jerry Spinelli’s Wringer (1998). Our hero Palmer lives in a town that is famous for putting on a pigeon shoot every year. Boys in town are expected to wring the necks of wounded pigeons to put them out of their suffering. Palmer doesn’t want to become a wringer, but also doesn’t want to admit that he doesn’t want to become a wringer because he knows the other boys will think he’s a sissy.

This book was absolutely everywhere when I was a kid, and I never read it because the cover is so creepy (look at it!) and the premise seemed both repulsive and borderline incomprehensible. Why are the boys expected to murder pigeons? Why can’t Palmer just SAY he doesn’t want to murder pigeons? “If you don’t want to murder pigeons, then just say you don’t want to murder pigeons!” I would have shouted at Palmer. “NO NORMAL PERSON WANTS TO MURDER PIGEONS.”

Reading it as an adult, I did grasp that the point was the crushing difficulty of bucking gendered social expectations. But uuuuhhh also I did still feel a little “Palmer stop being so lily-livered and just say you don’t want to murder pigeons.” Sorry Palmer. I know this was very unsympathetic of me.

You may have noticed that neither of these boys want to do girl things. They simply wish to be excused from committing indiscriminate slaughter and do other, slightly less manly boy things. To the best of my recollection (which is of course imperfect), there aren’t any Newbery books focused on Boys Who Want to Do Girl Things. Maybe 2026 will be the year.

Comments

[asakiyume]

Yeah, I feel the misogynist culture is much, much more willing to have girls want to do boy things than to have boys want to do girl things.

What a weird book premise Wringer is (and yeah: definitely a creepy cover). It strikes me as strange that the focus is on not wringing the wounded pigeons' necks as opposed to not having a pigeon shoot in the first place. Like on the one hand, I understand your instinct to shout "No normal person wants to murder pigeons," but on the other, if the choice is, let this wounded bird die painfully or put it out of its misery ,that seems like a different thing? And then the protest seems like it would be better focused on not setting up the pigeons to need to be put out of their misery in the first place--i.e. don't shoot them! (But maybe the book does go there?)

On the other hand, I too like the idea of the sisters in the other book marrying Elk.

[rachelmanija]

The focus on wringing vs shooting is a function of who the protagonist is. He's a boy and boys do the wringing, as a preliminary/training for when they become men and do the shooting. It's not really a different thing in that sense, just two sides of the same masculine death cult.

Apparently this was all based on a real pigeon-murdering festival! But it feels like a metaphor for the cultural celebration of male violence in general.

[asakiyume]

*nodding*--okay, got it.

Celebrations of male violence are definitely a Thing. Sigh.

[kore]

Yeah, I feel the misogynist culture is much, much more willing to have girls want to do boy things than to have boys want to do girl things.

I was just racking my brains and I really don't think I can think of any, but I'm sure there were YA books out there about boys who wanted to cook or go into fashion or whatever and it was Okay by the end of the book. There has to be one or two?

I associate pigeon shooting with Annie Oakley, lol, although apparently that's now supposed to be clay pigeons (she did shoot live pigeons). My first thought was that it's for pest control, like farmers getting bounties for crows? But apparently live pigeon shoots were a giant thing with actual sports competitions globally and THOSE went on until like 2000! Things I did not ever want to know.

[asakiyume]

There must be a book out there somewhere, I agree: there's the picture book about William wanting a doll, for instance, so yeah, there must be some for slightly older kids. Maybe just not in the ranks of the Newberys.

re: pigeon shoots, I guess since hunting is a thing, this isn't, in the end, so surprising. I mean in Agatha Christie's England people go out and shoot ducks, etc., for sport. It's the doing it for sport/entertainment rather than for food that's gross (IMO). I guess, as I think about it more, one thing that gets me with Wringer is the idea that wringing the pigeon's neck is somehow a boy thing preparatory to being a man. Like, who's traditionally wringing the necks of chickens for eating? My sense is that it's women, not men. But since it's based on a real thing, *shrugs* Gender roles, man! You can stick things anywhere you want.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, as I commented to kore, I've seen a few YA books about boys who don't want to do boy things - The Prince and the Dressmaker, a graphic novel about a prince whose hobby is dressing up in fabulous dresses, instantly comes to mind. But that is YA which is not really the Newbery demographic anyway.

[osprey_archer]

I know I've seen some more recent graphic novels about this (The Prince and the Dressmaker? The Prince likes to dress up in fabulous dresses?) but it's definitely more recently that it's started being a real thing, and still not that common.

[cyphomandra]

It’s not a Newbery, but KM Hayes’ My Little Brony is about a boy whose family moves to a new town where his dad is the football coach and he sucks at sport. A girl in his class loves My Little Pony (she wears horse ears) and gets bullied for it - he starts watching MLP and becomes a fan despite himself, drawing art for it.

(There are quite a few boy does ballet books? I’m having trouble thinking of other obvious challenges to masculinity.)

[osprey_archer]

Yeah, as rachelmanija says below, the pigeon-wringing is a function of the main character being a boy who is supposed to be a good cog in the masculine death cult. If he were the kind of kid who could object to the pigeon shoot as a whole, he would already be outside of the death cult and it would just the whole point of the story.

[troisoiseaux]

This book was absolutely everywhere when I was a kid

This is wild, because I have never heard that Jerry Spinelli of Stargirl fame (the one that WAS absolutely everywhere when I was a kid) wrote a book about murdering pigeons. (Or rather, how not murdering pigeons is bucking the patriarchy...?)

(Also that is THEEE most incredibly 90s cover I've ever seen. They've apparently since changed the cover to a sort of abstract-concept design involving birthday candles.)

[osprey_archer]

Now this is an interesting question: was it REALLY everywhere, or do I just remember it being everywhere because the cover punched me in the eye every time I saw it, which was every time I was close to the Stargirl shelf?

I think the original cover is actually too grimdark for the book (it looks like a sort of animal transformation horror story), but birthday candles seem way too light. How DO you pick the right vibe for a cover for a book about learning that you don't have to murder pigeons just to fulfill gender norms?

[genarti]

Whereas I'd never heard of either Wringer or Stargirl -- my instant association was Maniac Magee, which was ubiquitous to me! In looking at his works and publication dates, that's definitely because I'm a few years older than either of you; one could probably chart microgenerations of more-or-less-millennials by what Jerry Spinelli book was everywhere for them, I'm guessing.

[kore]

In The Chocolate War (1974) the main character doesn't want to get on the school program about selling chocolates, which is tied to power games in male boarding schools and patriarchy in general, but I think that's presented as more nonconformist than anti-toxic masculinity. And in A Separate Peace (1959) there's a side character who can't bear being in the military, and the military's a constant background, but that's not desirable. I can't remember if those won Newbery awards though. I'm pretty sure Catcher in the Rye (1951) didn't but that's also pretty anti-masculinity and anti-conformity. But Holden calls himself yellow constantly and hates himself so it's not exactly positive! I really would expect there to be at least a couple of Newbery novels questioning toxic masculinity in maybe the last 10-15 years, it's kind of weird there aren't any.

I think the boy in Bridge to Terabithia (1977) is seen as sissy by his dad or something because he wants to paint? and that is not seen as a Manly Thing. But frankly I don't want to reread that one.

Girls who don't want to do Girl Things and who want to do Boy Things seems like a gigantic field!

[osprey_archer]

Yes, those are all non-Newbery books, and A Separate Peace IIRC is also an adult book, for all that the main characters are still teenagers. I think you're right that this is a subplot in Bridge to Terabithia, that the narrator is seen as a sissy for various reasons (best friend is girl; artistic?) but like you I don't want to reread it.

It's possible there's been a Newbery book in the past 15 odd years dealing with this topic and I've just forgotten, because it's been 15 years since I read some of them.

[sovay]

Because it’s 1958 the book of course does not SAY that in a few years time, the sisters marry Elk. But I like to think that sometime after the book ends, the three of them are happily married and surrounded by horses.

Delightful, accepted.

I find it really interesting that the two books you have found are both about opting out of violence as opposed to choosing some stereotypically gender-non-conforming pursuit à la Billy Elliot (2000). Like, hooray for not buying into the patriarchal cult of murder makes the man! But also it's a kind of definition by negation that is slightly depressing.

[osprey_archer]

It's possible that there's something in the more recent Newbery books that I've forgotten. Since I started with the more recent books and worked back, my memory of the 2010s especially is kind of hazy. But I think I would remember if it were a main plotline, at least.

[sholio]

I'm genuinely surprised that more direct boy analogs of the tomboy-girl books don't exist, especially in the modern era! Not even a boy adopting a girl's role in society necessarily; "boy enjoys stereotypically female activity like knitting or baking pies, other people make fun of him, then he wins the county fair pie-baking contest" sounds like a plot that should have been at least one Newbery book or two.

[osprey_archer]

I know I've seen some books like this, but nothing that has won the Newbery yet. Perhaps the next great Newbery frontier!

[grrlpup]

Is having a cat (or caring about the cat you have) presented as a Girl Thing in It's Like This, Cat? I don't remember if anyone implies that in the book. (Time for a reread, I guess!)

[osprey_archer]

I can't remember. Please report back if the main character angsts about the unmanliness of having a cat!

[silverusagi]

Yup, that is one creepy cover.

[osprey_archer]

Right?? It looks like it should be a horror novel. The Birds for children.

[lokifan]

Fascinating that there aren't any! The Carnegie has The Changeover by Margaret Mahy, but I'm not sure if it counts - one of the main characters is a boy witch, and that's definitely him breaking gender rules within the story, but I can't remember it involving him wanting to do girl things or not do boy things beyond the mere fact of using magic.

[osprey_archer]

I read The Changeover a couple years ago! IIRC he's boy witch, but he wants to make it very clear to the heroine that he is All Boy in other ways.