The boys fall into the gender gap

Reading is not for sissies, as the front page of the newspaper demonstrates every morning in the homestretch of a raucous presidential campaign. But there's a deeper problem, one that civility and good manners won't cure.
The really bad news is that boys are falling into a gender gap far removed from mere politics. Great numbers of boys won't read, even when they can, and when they do crack open a book or pick up a newspaper or magazine, they don't stay with it very long. The concerns in a competitive technological age are obvious.