Abstract
Boy Oh Boy: From Boys to Men, Be Inspired by 30 Coming-of-Age Stories of Sportsmen, Artists, Politicians, Educators, and Scientists, written by Cliff Leek and illustrated by Bene Rohlmann, is a children’s book that could have just as easily been titled Not All Men, Children’s Edition. As explained in the one-page introduction to the book, Leek is not a fan of the phrase “boys will be boys,” which refers to societal patterns of normative, aggressive, and often violent notions of what it means to be a man or masculine. As a result, Leek asks readers to focus on exceptions who defy these expectations of what it means to be a man. The same way so many men argue “not all men” whenever the latest example of men’s violence, aggression, or other negative behavior finds voice in society, Boy Oh Boy proclaims that men can be exceptions just in case parents and children have not already gotten this message from the many other media offerings that, like children’s literature, overwhelmingly focus on the lives of boys and men.
This is not to say there is not anything worthwhile in the book. For example, it is nice to see that men of color and gay men are featured in the book. There is also a trans man featured, but for some reason, the author chose to deadname this person in the text so it cannot really be seen as a positive representation. It is also worth noting that the illustrations in this book are fantastic and would likely provide considerable enjoyment to any child exposed to them. Further, the narrative constructions of certain parts of these men’s lives are interesting, compelling, and even inspiring. In fact, it is easy to see how some parents might consider this book to be not only worthwhile but even quite enjoyable. At the same time, however, it is difficult to understand why we might need yet another book about how good boys and men can be in some exceptional cases, or yet another children’s book focused on the successes, victories, and other achievements of men when children’s—or other genres of—books about cisgender women and transgender people in general are much less common or widely available.
Like any other reader who might pick up this or any other book and a few parents I asked about the book, I also found myself struck by how different this book might seem in the hands of varied children. If, for example, parents gave this book to a child who was assigned male at birth but did not have any desire to be a boy or a man, like I once was, then this book would be yet another of the many damaging lessons such children get about expectations that they/we will conform to the gender their/our parents and society assign them/us without their/our consent. If, in a different case, parents gave this book to a child who was assigned male at birth that did wish to become a boy and/or a man over time, then the meaning of the text itself might be completely different and even a potentially positive experience. The problem, of course, is that there is usually no way for parents to know which of these two, or other, situations may be occurring in the earliest years of a child’s life. Although parents face this same dilemma with any gendered media they share with their children, the risk is even greater in a children’s book that is so explicitly focused on the potential greatness of one gender specifically.
In sum, Boy Oh Boy offers parents yet another way to teach children that not all men conform to more widespread negative forms of what it means to be a man. Although Leek expresses the hope that readers will see this book and say boy oh boy for positive reasons, that seems to be only one side of the story presented here. On the one hand, a parent might say “boy oh boy, isn’t it great that men of color and gay men are in a children’s book with such beautiful illustrations.” On the other hand, the same parent may say “boy oh boy yet another book about how men can be good in exceptional cases, yet another case of deadnaming trans people, and yet another way for parents to, intentionally or otherwise, suggest kids assigned male should become boys and men of some type regardless of what the child may feel, desire, or want.” Ultimately, the best summary of the book may well be that boys—even as authors—will be boys even though not all men perform what it means to be a man in the exact same ways.