The boys and the book supply. What boys in eight grade claim they want to read about and what is offered to them.

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to study if teenage fiction, published in Swedish during the course of one year, matches what boys in eight grade claim they want to read about. The background for our work is a survey initiated by Lärarnas Riksförbund, Läsa för att lära, in 2005. The conclusion drawn in Läsa för att lära is that many children, especially boys, lose their interest in reading when they become teenagers. Information on fictional books for teenagers has been collected from Bibliotekstjänst. To establish what boys want to read about we have handed out questionnaires to 62 students in grade eight. In order to gain understanding on teenage reading we have studied the theories of Joseph A. Appleyard, presented in his book Becoming a reader. His research shows that identification and realism are two important factors for teenage readers as well as finding a book that will “make them think”. Our results show that fictional books published in the genres ”everyday-life” and ”misery lit” are most common, followed closely by “fantasy”. The first two categories were of little interest to our students. “Fantasy”, however, was a genre they liked. The results also show that humoristic books were most popular, followed by books on “war” and “sports”. Our conclusion is that the supply from BTJ in 2007 of fictional books (for teenagers), does not really match what the boys in our study claim they want to read about, with the exception of “fantasy”