Boys Trail Girls in Reading; Can Fart Jokes Help?
Educators turn to gross-out humor for boys as study sounds alarm on reading achievement
ABC News
This book cover provided by The Blue Sky Press/Scholastic shows the cover of "Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People," by Dav Pilkey. Boys have lagged behind girls in reading achievement for more than 20 years, but the gender gap now exists in nearly every state and has widened to mammoth proportions _ as much as 10 percentage points in some, according to the Center on Education Policy.

Butts, farts. Whatever, said Amelia Yunker, a children's librarian in Farmington Hills, Mich. She hosted a grossology party with slime and an armpit noise demonstration. "Just get 'em reading. Worry about what they're reading later."
Adding online tie-ins or packaged prizes like the steady-selling "39 Clues" series has publishers meeting young readers halfway.
Patrick Carman has gone a step further with his wicked creepy "Skeleton Creek" series from Scholastic. The upper-grade books use password-protected websites to alternate book text and quick fixes of shaky, hand-held video. To follow the story, reading and watching online are both required.
"We're meeting them halfway," Carman said. "It's the idea that these books understand where they're at."
Farts are Ray Sabini's halfway point for younger kids. The fourth grade teacher from Miller Place, outside New York City, heard from dozens of grateful parents, teachers and librarians after he self-published his "SweetFarts" in 2008 under the name Raymond Bean.
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