I love being sent books to review. We’ve been really fortunate recently and I have a lovely pile of books to tell you about over the coming weeks. Today I wanted to tell you about Boy oh Boy: from boys to men, be inspired by 30 coming-of-age stories of sportsmen, artists, politicians, educators and scientists, written by Dr. Cliff Leek, illustrated by Bene Rohlmann. I bought my daughter a book of stories about inspirational women for Christmas but couldn’t find anything similar for my son, so I was delighted to be gifted a copy for review.

Boy oh Boy: 30 coming-of-age stories

Boy oh Boy is a large hardback book containing 30 strikingly illustrated accounts of male role models that prove modern day masculinity is diverse – and can be defined freely. In the book you meet 30 positive male role models from throughout history that combat conventional male stereotypes and teach young boys that there are many different ways to be a man.

In this brilliantly colourful ode to the modern man, the author aims to alleviate the current societal issues in boys and young men connected with toxic masculinity by teaching the coming-of-age stories of peace activists like Gandhi, artists like David Hockney, musicians like Prince, athletes like Lebron James, poets like Kit Yan, and fashion icons like Edward Enninful.

To be honest my son hadn’t heard of many of the men featured, but I had and we loved sharing the stories of them together. Each featured person has their own full page image and one page of text about them.

Boy oh Boy is published by Wide Eyed Editions, an imprint of The Quarto Group. Published in Hardback on the 4th April 2019, priced £14.99 and perfect for ages 7 and over.