Would boys be interested in an upper-middle-grade fantasy with a female MC?
I'm writing an upper-middle-grade fantasy series set in a magical school. The main character is a girl, and one of her best friends/secondary main characters is a boy. There are other male characters in the story, but he is the only boy who is part of the main group.
The story has magical sports, creatures, duelling, mysteries, villains, and a wider magical world outside the school.
I'm a girl myself, so I've been wondering whether having a female protagonist and a main cast that's mostly girls would make the book less appealing to boys, or whether the actual story and characters would matter more.
For boys who read fantasy, would this kind of setup put you off reading it? And for parents/teachers/writers who know boys who read MG fantasy, I'd be interested in your perspective too.