The Boy Who Read Books Meant For Girls

It wasn't Timothy Jenkins' fault. If nobody explains to you that content is intended only for a teenage, female audience, a juvenile reader will assume that it is all part of the rich pageant of literature, a glass held up to the lives of others in the way that is a feature of all fiction.

The publishers should have made it clearer, probably. But they would no doubt argue that it was an issue of branding. That any prolific and bestselling author of children's books is marketed with a certain consistency as a matter of course. If you're apportioning blame, the publishers would say, blame the publicists. 

Regardless of whose fault it was, the issue remains: ignorant though he was as to the intended audience of the books he was getting through, Timothy was reading girl fiction, written for girls and about girls, its concerns entirely the concerns of girls. They were, in short, books meant for girls.

You might argue that, in any case, it was a little bit late to be apportioning blame. But as far as Timothy's parents were concerned, somebody needed to be held responsible. The question was, who?

As to whether or not it was too late... that would turn out to be an even trickier question to answer.