Do the same with music, and sports/physical activity, and other things.
I think what the trick for me:
- My parents read regularly, so it just was a normal part of life in my eyes.
- My parents' siblings would gift me volumes of children's book series for birthdays and holidays. I'd look forward to getting the next book in a series for months, and it was a big exciting event for me.
- Adults were willing to discuss the books I read with me (and sometimes humor me by reading one), so I got recognition from them for what I was doing, and learned to connect over books. If a book was important to me, other people were willing to take my feelings seriously. Being rooted in a book made them legitimate.
- My dad was not a spend-y sort of person, but once a year for Christmas, he'd rifle through a book club catalog with me and let me order more or less any book I wanted. This was exciting, and we got tons of random books at home filling the shelves.
- Access to books, i.e. those full shelves. Bored to tears on a rainy day? My father would tell me to pick a book.
I have a daughter, and it is just crazy once you start reading books how much is needlessly male focussed.
From the first farmyard books where the boy is driving the tractor and the girl is in the cart on the back. To fantastic Mr fox and his four small foxes (all male) etc etc. It's just extremely unbalanced.
In our community, there's every reason not to use a male default everywhere. It would not have changed the original commenters meaning at all to have said "they" instead of "him" and would have been more inclusive. Surely that's a good default?