Using Picture Books to Provide Archetypes to Young Boys: Extending the Ideas of William Brozo

In his book To Be a Boy, To Be a Reader: Engaging Teen and Preteen Boys in Active Literacy, William Brozo suggested that many adolescent boys have become mentally and academically detached from school. While Brozo acknowledges that a solution to these problems is multifaceted, he asserts that engaging boys in literature that makes use of archetypes can contribute to their resolution. This article extends Brozo's ideas to boys in the years before adolescence. If educators wait until the middle grades to engage boys in literacy and books, they risk losing many to the detachment Brozo describes. Boys can and should be introduced to archetypes earlier, and this can be accomplished with picture books. The author presents a list of picture books arranged by archetype, along with strategies for creating boy-friendly classrooms.