The below are a list of articles published that relate to the topics of reading, masculinity and emotional development.
A novel idea for men’s emotional growth
Boys are rarely encouraged to read fiction and talk about its ability to open up inner worlds.
This article was originally published in The Guardian on 6 June 2025.
Sarah Moss’s contribution to your debate (‘Men need liberation too’: do we need more male novelists?, 31 May) strikes at the heart of the matter: the issue is not whether men are being published, but whether they are reading – and being supported to develop emotional lives that fiction can help foster.
As a researcher on men’s health behaviours, I see growing evidence that restrictive models of masculinity – stoicism, self-reliance, emotional detachment – are linked to poorer mental and physical health outcomes. Literature offers an antidote: access to emotional nuance, empathy and self-reflection. But boys are rarely encouraged to see reading in this way.
As a teenager, I rarely discussed books with male friends, even though I secretly read them. One long summer I immersed myself in Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina and Effi Briest. These novels (by male authors) opened up inner worlds I hadn’t been taught to name. That emotional expansion is a gift literature offers – one that boys in particular are too often denied.
If we want to steer young men away from isolation or online extremism, we need more men to speak publicly about the books that moved them – and to reach out, to each other and to their sons. Dear men, when was the last time you read something to another man?
Role models like Barack Obama and Bill Gates have shown the power of reading, but we need them to champion fiction too. And we must protect public and school libraries. The National Literacy Trust reports that children born into communities with the most serious literacy challenges have some of the lowest life expectancies in England. Those who enjoy reading are also happier with their lives. If men’s reading is in crisis, the solution won’t come from publishing alone. It must be cultural – and collective.
Five children’s books that feature positive male role models – from toddlers to teens
An extended version of this article was originally published in The Conversation on 7 April 2025
We are facing an apparent ‘crisis of masculinity’ among young boys. As the success of the Netflix show Adolescence has highlighted, young men are lacking positive role models – and increasingly looking to misogynistic online influencers to fill the void. In response, we’ve asked five academic experts to recommend a book they’d read with a boy or young man that features a positive male role model. The stories they’ve selected celebrate kindness, integrity and vulnerability. Suitable for readers from infancy to late adolescence, these picks aim to teach boys what it means to be responsible, compassionate and confident men.
- The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy (2019) - Suitable for all ages
As a researcher inspired by bell hooks’ adult non-fiction work, The Will to Change (2004), I’m drawn to children’s books that nurture the emotional lives of boys and challenge traditional ideas of masculinity.
One such book is The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. Its quiet, reflective narrative centres on emotional openness, friendship and the strength found in vulnerability. These are also core themes in hooks’ call to liberate men and boys from the emotional constraints of patriarchal masculinity.
The characters gently model care, empathy and the courage to ask for help, offering children and their parents a vision of masculinity grounded in love and connection, rather than fear or dominance. In a culture that often discourages boys and the men they become from expressing tenderness, this book provides a vital counterbalance. It invites young readers to see emotional depth as a strength – planting early seeds for a more compassionate and expansive way of being.