4★
“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”
Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)

Man, oh man! This book covers a lot of different men–eras, ages, races, colours, ethnicities, LGBTI, and backgrounds. Then there are the different careers. They are all men who’ve made a mark in some way, whether it’s through activism, rising to the top of their field, or simply being a role model for what it is possible to achieve from a poor beginning.

Not all boys have appropriate role models in real life, so here are some men with whom they may identify in some way.

The illustrations are striking and bright – like a fiesta! – just the kind of thing that would catch a boy’s eye. I’ll share a few screenshots below, but first I’d like to include a section from the Author’s Note on the back cover which explains exactly what he set out to do.

“The phrase 'boys will be boys' has bothered me for a long time. I usually hear the phrase used when boys misbehave. We say 'boys will be boys' when boys and men act out, don’t listen or hurt others. We say it as if these behaviours are exactly what we should expect.

But we can expect more. Phrases like 'boys will be boys' set us up to think about boys in narrow and limited ways, so it is incredibly important for us to tell the stories of people who have defied those expectations. It is important that we tell the stories of boys and men who do things like care deeply about others, stand up for what is right, and express themselves in creative and exciting ways.“

I learned a lot about some very interesting men I’d never heard of, all of whom are listed in the publicity material. I didn’t remember that Richard Loving and his wife had to fight in 1967 to abolish the law that still made interracial marriage illegal in Virginia. 1967!

[My Goodreads review shows the page for Richard Loving.]

The opening quotation was by Frederick Douglass who was enslaved as a boy with his parents and later separated from them. He eventually escaped slavery and became a preacher and an activist for both civil rights and equal rights. His is an interesting story. (Well, they all are.)

[My Goodreads review shows the page for Frederick Douglass.]

To give you an idea of the variety and interesting juxtaposition of the men, the entry before Douglass is NBA basketball star LeBron James (whose foundation has raised a lot of money for causes and scholarships) and after him is transgender boxer Pat Manuel. So the boys are going to see all kinds of men, not just activists or scientists or artists.

Speaking of artists, here’s a famous, flamboyant poet/playwright who very much marched to the tune of his own drum. He was arrested and sent to prison to do hard labour for being gay. In 2017, the British government apologised. Of course, he’d died 117 years earlier, but I guess it’s the thought that counts! And the hope that it won’t happen today.

[My Goodreads review shows the page for Oscar Wilde.]

The story of another great artist, a Cuban ballet dancer, is the reverse of the usual “Billy Elliot” dance story. He was the youngest of 11 kids, and the only way his father could find to feed him was to send him to a government ballet school. He ended up with the Royal Ballet and was awarded a CBE!

[My Goodreads review shows the page for Carlos Acosta CBE.]

Next is a man who broke the stereotype of nurses. Born in Pennsylvania in 1915, he bucked the system and became a nurse, but the army wouldn’t let him join the nurse corps during WW2. He changed the face of nursing.

[My Goodreads review shows the page for Luther Christman.]

And now, my personal favourite – a teacher! Jaime Escalante came from Bolivia with his wife and children. He had taught mathematics and physics, but he had no English when he arrived.

When he eventually became a teacher in Los Angeles, in 1982 he taught a group of underprivileged, mostly Latino students, so well in mathematics that they were suspected of cheating. They sat the test again and excelled. Nobody could believe these kids could be so smart!

[My Goodreads review shows the page for Jaime Escalante, given the Medal of Excellence for Education by the President of the US.]

He gave them mathematics so they had a language to speak and skills for the future. The statement on the bottom of his page says:

“YOU DO NOT ENTER THE FUTURE – YOU CREATE THE FUTURE.
THE FUTURE IS CREATED THROUGH HARD WORK.”

His story was featured in the inspiring 1988 film "Stand and Deliver", for which Edward James Olmos won the Best Actor Oscar.

There are another two dozen worthy men in this book, and I recommend their stories!

I hope people make sure the boys in their lives see this book and inspire them to be the kind of men we admire – good men – in whatever walks of life they choose.

Thanks for the preview copy to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing who published this in April 2019.
#BoyOhBoy #NetGalley

The eye catching illustrations were absolutely wonderful.
It was nice to see some strong male influences for young boys, and I was happy that this book was created to oppose the “boys will be boys” ethos.
It was certainly fun and inspirational.
However I do think that books like this would be more inspirational to include all genders in one book, or even gender-fluid role-models.

I received an electronic ARC from Quarto Publishing Group through NetGalley.
Leek presents information on thirty men who don't fit the "boys will be boys" mold that is so destructive. Each has their own two-page spread with information about their life, a quote, and illustrations that bring them to life for younger readers.
The text takes the same format for each bio so readers will follow the pattern of information provided. The illustrations let the person leap off the page for readers to understand.
This book balances well with so many written about women in recent years.
Will definitely be purchasing for my library.

These brief one page biographies of men who overcame challenges offer good role models for boys. Challenges conventional stereotypes.

Beautifully illustrated and incredibly eye catching. I'm glad that Leek included men of all ages and races, from several different time periods and all different backgrounds. This is quite the inspirational book and will be something I keep in mind when I have to purchase gifts for family member's children.

I love that this book includes men from different time periods, from all over the world and from any kind of background you could think of. It shows boys that no matter where you start from, you can do good in the world, and that with hard work you can accomplish your goals. I love that there are men who have done good or been inspirational in different ways for my boys to learn about in this book. There were even a few I hadn't previously heard of that I learned about myself. I think this is a great book for boys to find some inspiration in.

This book is wonderful. First of all it is bright, well illustrated and eye catching which definitely appealed to my children. The book focuses on the lives of remarkable men from Nelson Mandela to Oscar Wilde and Freddie Mercury as well as some lesser known inspirational males. The text is quite short but packed full of information and I particularly liked the key inspirational quotes included.
Excellent book.

A beautiful nonfiction title that deserves to be in many young classrooms. This is a great resource for teachers and parents about this topic.

This was a very decent and important but also very flawed book, that is destined for many a school library shelf. The introduction says it's railing against the 'boys will be boys' ethos, that lumbers the gender with one seeming destiny. You could also see it as counter to all those books of recent times about female pioneers, educators, scientists, thinkers, etc – making this the corrective against the corrective. Either way we get many potted biographies of people that have stood out and let their masculinity go against the grain, whether it be proving working class children can learn calculus so well their exam results were questioned in case of cheating, or marrying counter to state miscegenation laws. Some are definitely well-known, as we trawl from WEB du Bois to Carlos Acosta, many not. Some are only here for the liberal elite's bandwagon of the year, gender realignment.

The pictorial design is wonderful throughout, though, allowing space for the text, but always being appropriate, so we learn about Hayao Miyazaki as if his life was written on the back of a tourist board in a Japanese temple, and Grandmaster Flash appears to us on a slipmat. The biggest problem is that it's hugely USA-centric, with barely a quarter of the contents ever experiencing boyhood anywhere else. The only Scot, for example, is only here because he invented the idea of American National Parks. Still, from nurses to musicians, the book does still represent a bounty of worlds for its male readers to enter – and of course their sisters, too.

I fear this little book might get lost in the current sea of ‘role model profile’ books. This is a lovely example, with bright stylised images and interesting people. Very smartly written, engagingly colourful.

The ARC of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

"Boy Oh Boy" is a book that presented us the lives of 30 incredible men who weren't afraid to be who they were and fought for their dreams to come true.
This stories show us that there are endless possibilieties in life and that boys and men can do and be so much more than what we think of when we say things like “boys will be boys.”
The illustrations are beautiful and so colorful that glue your eyes to the pages.
The stories of these great men are really inspirational and can be helpfull for children and adults.

This vibrant anthology of key figures in history is a must for any young dreamer. It is a diverse and inclusive run down of influential men from around the world.