This paper outlines the first stage of a research project on the topic of boys (aged 11-17) and literacy and the mediating role that families play in building interpersonal relations around reading and guiding boys into a broad range of literacy practices in the home. Findings from this research will inform a comparative study of boys identified as reluctant readers, to be conducted in 2001. Of particular interest to educators is the body of research that focuses attention on a deficit model of boys and reading. The research highlights the investment made by parents, mothers in particular, in ensuring that sharing reading practices through and across a broad range of texts, within the dominion of the family, has helped to construct boys as committed and successful readers. The research also points to the boys' appropriation of the tacit and explicit guidance in reading they have received from their parents. (Contains 20 references and a table of data.) (Author/RS)