Move over, Cinderella — Male protagonists are ASU professor Debby Zambo’s way of getting young boys to read.

Zambo, a professor in the College of Teacher Education and Leadership, co-wrote a book called “Bright Beginnings for Boys: Engaging Young Boys in Active Literacy” with William G. Brozo, a professor at George Mason University in Virginia.

The book was published on Dec. 31, 2008, and was written for parents, teachers and anyone who works with young boys, Zambo said.

“There’s really two purposes: One purpose is to help young boys become readers because there’s a lot of research saying boys aren’t doing well in literacy,” she said. “The second idea is to help people working with boys help them see a vision of good manhood.”

Thomas Newkirk, a professor at the University of New Hampshire, said in the book’s foreword that a lot of boys experience developmental and physiological constraints, and that the “early experience of failure and frustration” causes boys to give up on reading and decide they’re simply bad at it.

Because of this, Zambo said, in order for boys to become good readers, they need to have positive experiences with books at an early age, as well as find positive visions of themselves in the books.

“We need to begin to understand boys and step back and take a look at what we’re doing and how we’re trying to control boys’ active nature,” she said.

Early childhood education junior Sarah Bassous babysits a 9-year-old boy whose parents make reading a priority, and said she thinks the book is a great idea.

“The boy I babysit is already reading books that I read in sixth grade,” she said. “When kids are interested in what they’re reading, they’ll read a lot more.”

Zambo said boys should learn to read using stories that instill essential traits and morals.

“To help boys become readers, there are very important skills they need — skills like honesty and responsibility,” she said.

Zambo said she feels it’s important for boys’ literacy levels to increase, narrowing the gap between boys and girls.

Although Zambo had never met Brozo, she ended up writing a journal article in The Reading Teacher in which she used ideas from his book about engaging preteen and teenage boys in active literacy, but she applied the ideas to young boys.

“I e-mailed [Brozo] the idea, and that snowballed into getting a request from the International Reading Association to co-write the book,” Zambo said.

The book includes chapters on nurturing young male readers, understanding their physical and cognitive development and matching literacy activities to boys’ interests, among others.

Zambo said she doesn’t yet know how many copies of the book have sold.

Reach the reporter at charlsy.panzino@asu.edu.