FROM THE PUBLISHER

What is a typical guy moment, anyhow? Daniel Pinkwater remembers thedisappointment of meeting his Lone Star Ranger hero up close and personal. Gordon Korman relishes the goofy ultra violence of the old Looney Tunes cartoons. Stephen King realizes that having your two hundred- pound babysitter fart on your five-year-old head prepares you for any literary criticism. And that's just a sampling from Guys Write for Guys Read, a fast-paced, high energy collection of short works: stories, essays, columns, cartoons, anecdotes, and artwork by today's most popular writers and illustrators. Guys Write will feature work from Brian Jacques, Jerry Spinelli, Chris Crutcher, Mo Willems, Chris Van Allsburg, Matt Groening, Neil Gaiman, the editors and columnists from Sports Illustrated,The Onion and Esquire magazines, and more. Selected by voters at the Guys Read Web site and compiled by Jon Scieszka, this wide-ranging collection of authors and illustrators shows that guys do read . . . and will read more if given things they enjoy reading.

A Note from the Author

Too many boys struggle with reading.

I grew up with five brothers, taught elementary school for ten years, and have been writing books for kids for the last fifteen years. I started writing books like The Stinky Cheese Man and the Time Warp Trio series in part to inspire my second-grade boys to want to read.

Now I'd like to do more. So I've started a nonprofit literacy initiative called GUYS READ. The basic idea is to help boys read by connecting them with books that will motivate them to want to read.

Recommendations to the original GUYS READ website provided hundreds of titles boys like to read. I asked one hundred of these authors and illustrators to write about being a guy, and their contributions made the anthology, Guys Write for Guys Read. Now the money from the anthology has built a new interactive website at www.guysread.com.

Check it out. Let's look into what's going on with boys and reading. And let's help our guys read.

Jon Scieszka

Author Bio: Former teacher, Jon Scieszka, founded the Guys Read literacy initiative in response to the struggle many boys face with reading—a struggle that can have a negative impact on their self-esteem, their success in school, and their futures. He is the enormously popular author of the Time Warp Trio series as well as Science Verse and the Caldecott Honor¿¿¿winning book The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales. Jon lives in Brooklyn, New York.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

An outgrowth of Scieszka's Guys Read Web-based literacy initiative to encourage boys to read, this volume reveals a rich array of voices, styles and approaches. The 90 children's authors' and illustrators' pieces reveal memories that defined their boyhoods and, in many cases, launched them on their career paths. Anticipating their audience, the contributors keep their works succinct and enticing, allowing boys to skip about, and dip in and out. What emerges is an affecting, articulate composite of the humiliations and triumphs of youth, touching on themes of sports, girls, school, fathers, brothers and the creative process. Terry Davis and David Klass share moving recollections of their fathers; Jack Prelutsky presents a lively poem about boys as well as a harrowing tale of his close encounter with a zoo lion; Gordon Korman offers a snappy enumeration of "Guy Things"; David Shannon recalls creating the first version of No, David! at the age of five (a reproduction of that early attempt is included); and Scieszka relays a comic-kid-pleasingly graphic-account of a family car trip on which the pet cat's upset stomach sets off a chain reaction. Though the tone of the entries ranges from comic to poignant and will resonate with readers to varying degrees, all convey a remarkable candor and eagerness to reach out to boys. Lloyd Alexander, Avi, Eoin Colfer, Jack Gantos, David Macaulay, Dav Pilkey, Walter Dean Myers, Peter S s, Jerry Spinelli and Laurence Yep are among the others who enrich this inspiring revelation of what it means to be a guy. Ages 11-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Gr 5-9-Scieszka has put together a diverse and fast-paced anthology of scribblings and stories that deserves a permanent place in any collection serving middle graders. The book features brief contributions from scores of heavyweight authors and illustrators like Walter Dean Myers, Dan Gutman, Chris Crutcher, Avi, Brian Jacques, Dav Pilkey, Stephen King, Daniel Pinkwater, Jerry Spinelli, Will Hobbs, Chris Van Allsburg, Laurence Yep, and frequent collaborator Lane Smith. If there's one overarching theme here, it's the simple but important message: "read what you like, when you like, whatever that happens to be." Several other themes reappear in multiple selections. Among them are the importance of fathers, what it is to become a "real" man, how childhood reading predicted and shaped an author's future, adventures and misadventures in sports, why it's okay to be a "guy's guy," and, conversely, never being a "guy's guy" and finding out that that's okay, too. Boys who are constantly doodling-even when they're not supposed to-will be particularly inspired by contributions from successful illustrators like Tony DiTerlizzi, Timothy Basil Ering, and Brett Helquist, who've dug up their old, shaky drawings from parents' attics to show boys just what they were creating when they were kids. While the anthology arguably contains not one single masterpiece, there's something undeniably grand about this collective celebration of the intellectual life of the common boy.-Jeffrey Hastings, Highlander Way Middle School, Howell, MI Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

The complaint that there aren't enough books for boys can be dismissed after seeing Scieska's new collection, for which 88 writers and illustrators have contributed work. Awkwardly titled (its allusion is to Scieszka's Web site), this well-intentioned anthology runs the risk of stereotyping boys with its tales of barfing, farts, sex, basketball and war, and all of the very short pieces appeal to readers with short attention spans and the need for frequent visual stimulation. However, as a collection of brief autobiographical essays, excellent for reading aloud and as models for writing, this is quite good. Lloyd Alexander writes about a first date, Marc Aronson about the pure male joy in throwing things, Jack Gantos about daredevil neighbors and Gary Paulsen returns to the theme of peeing on electric fences, first explored in Harris and Me (1993). If it leads boys to the many works by the authors represented, it will have done a fine service to its cause. (foreword) (Anthology. 11+)