“Can fart jokes save the reading souls of boys?” asks an Associated Press wire story. Apparently, we had best hope so:

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.

“It certainly should set off alarm bells,” said the center’s director, Jack Jennings. “It’s a significant separation.”

….Parents of reluctant readers complain that boys are forced to stick to stuffy required school lists that exclude nonfiction or silly subjects, or have teachers who cater to higher achievers and girls. They’re hoping books that exploit boys’ love of bodily functions and gross-out humor can close the gap.

Driven by their desperation to attract young male readers attention, teachers, librarians and publishers are responding with a “steady stream of sports and historical nonfiction, potty humor, bloodthirsty vampires and action-packed graphic novels, fantasy and sleuthing,” according to the AP. “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.'”

As part of the enticement to read, some are adding on-line prizes, special features, and even video. Patrick Carman’s upper-grade books, the Skeleton Creek series from Scholastic, “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.'”

And then there is the wildly successful, Sweet Farts written for younger kids by Ray Sabini, fourth grade teacher from Miller Place, New York. “‘Reaching those reluctant boys, it’s a challenge I take very, very seriously and this is what they think is funny,'” Sabini told the AP. “‘There’s also history in there. There’s science in there, the problem of bullying, but it’s the humor that gets their attention.'”

Jon Scieszka, former teacher and Library of Congress literary ambassador for young people’s lit, has been writing kid books for 20 years, and he is a bit more hopeful about the range of what boys will read. “‘Boys will read a wide variety of stuff, not just gross-out humor, but stuff they enjoy in large part is stuff that’s not seen as legitimate reading in some schools, so they’re already feeling they’re not part of the system,'” he told the AP.

There is, of course, a long and hollowed tradition of the gross-out in literature. So these young readers can look forward to some sophisticated adult fare. Rabelais anyone?