Attempts by parents and teachers to persuade boys to read more are being undermined by publishers whose insistence on using lurid “Barbie” pink covers on books is turning away young male readers in their droves.

Wendy Cooling, of Bookstart, a charitable programme that encourages children to read, said she was dismayed that publishers were now using gender-specific marketing for certain children’s books. Whereas girls were not put off boys’ books, which tended to have primary colours, few boys dared to be seen reading a pink or purple book, even though they might otherwise enjoy it.

“Publishers are getting the covers wrong. Some stories are perfectly attractive to boys, but they are needlessly put off,” she said.

Ms Cooling is chairman of the selection panel for the Booked Up programme, which starts distributing one free book to every 11-year-old in England this week. The scheme offers pupils in the first year of secondary school a choice from a list of 12 titles.

It is being launched amid concerns that boys are lagging behind girls in reading at this age. The latest national curriculum test results for 11-year-olds show that 87 per cent of girls, but only 81 per cent of boys, achieve the reading level expected of their age. At 14, the figures are 78 and 65 per cent respectively.

Ms Cooling, who was speaking amid preparations for National Bookstart Day on October 5, which will be a celebration of children’s reading, said that she and fellow Booked Up panel members were frustrated to find that many of the books they felt would appeal to girls and boys had covers that were clearly intended to appeal only to girls.

The worst offender was Saffy’s Angel by Hilary McKay, about a girl who discovers the secret of her close-knit and eccentric family.

“When we chose Saffy’s Angel, we thought that no boy would pick it up because of the pink cover, even though we did think it would appeal to some boys.

“For young people, covers are crucial. With Saffy’s Angel, the publishers think they have it right because they have sold lots of books to girls. They don’t seem to realise that they could sell even more if they had boys in their sights,” she said.

Other books that boys might find they enjoyed if they dared to go beyond the pink covers include The Suitcase Kid by Jacqueline Wilson, which tells the story of divorce from a child’s perspective, and Pig-Heart Boy by Malorie Blackman, about a 13-year-old who needs a heart transplant.

Anne McNeil, the publishing director of Hodder Children’s Books, which publishes Saffy’s Angel, said: “Where books are about real contemporary characters rather than fantasy, we find that it is challenging to produce a cover which appeals equally to both genders – the danger is, you end up appealing to neither. Therefore we do tend to make a targeted decision, and are comfortable that this produces more sales.”

Marion Lloyd, publisher of Marion Lloyd Books at Scholastic, which publishes books by Philip Pullman, also defended the use of pink covers.

“Publishers are very conscious about what is a girlie cover and what is a boyish colour. We might look at a book and say ‘A boy would never touch it in a million years, but we don’t mind that if we can sell it to girls’,” she said.

But Amanda Craig, a children’s book critic for The Times, said that such attitudes risked undermining attempts to encourage more boys to read. “Publishers are quite lazy on this issue. They know that girls are more likely to enjoy reading, so it’s easier for them simply to target them. They don’t seem to realise that boys are capable of just as broad a range of reading as girls, once they get started,” she said.

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