Boys need more 'explosions' in their reading?

Encouraging boys to read books about monsters and explosions could help improve their faltering verbal skills. This is the premise on a new article by the New York Times titled 'The Boys Have Fallen Behind'. They cite compelling data showing a lack of reading skills among boys and then relate it to their broader consequences:

"Boys are twice as likely to get suspended as girls, and three times as likely to be expelled. Estimates of dropouts vary, but it seems that about one-quarter more boys drop out than girls." This, they premise, is happening throughout the industrialized world: USA, Scandinavia, Canada, Britain and so on.

Interesting. But is this new or has it always been that women are more into reading? Or is it that boys feel 'too cool' to read? Is it that there are much better-fitting pass times for boys? Maybe it is that their parental role models are just doing the same thing: mom reads, dad doesn't.

NTY concludes that by giving boys more explosive 'low brow' books we could incite them to read more. They offer the website guysread.com for getting titles that 'coax boys into reading' sorted into categories like “ghosts,” “boxers, wrestlers, ultimate fighters,” and “at least one explosion.”

Is this the right way to tackle the problem? What is the real issue anyway? If there is one insight here maybe it's that boys need much more intriguing motivators to learn the ways of verbal expression.

Here is the full article.