WHAT BOYS DO

This picture book is not a good advertisement for boyhood.

There are almost no stereotypes here. The boys in this book aren’t dressed up as football players or soldiers or even pirates. The text is almost entirely words of encouragement, such as “There are many ways to be a boy, and so many more ways to be you!” Characters picture themselves as a dancer and—less radically—a vocalist or a race car driver. But when the book suggests things a boy might do for fun, the ideas are often a little generic: “Build rockets, pick flowers, create works of art.” It doesn’t help that Lasser has rhymed the suggestions with the words “open your heart.” The rhymes rarely scan. The most unfortunate couplet is: “Do you show your affection and how much you care? / Give big hugs with the strength of a bear?” Paul’s illustrations are based on the traditional geometry of cartoons, filled with heart-shaped faces and pear-shaped bodies, but they show a remarkable amount of variety. No two characters have quite the same skin tone and body type. Some readers will badly need the message of acceptance and diversity, and the two-page backmatter at the end of the book offers valuable advice about inclusion. But there are sources of information with fewer clichés and grating rhymes; Elise Gravel, for instance, has posted multiple cartoons on the subject for free on her website.

Readers will be eager to see better stories inspired by this book.