Book series for young boys?

[CLHCO]

I know this has probably been discussed but I can't seem to narrow a search down well on this.

 

I'm well acquainted with book series for girls. American Girls, Nancy Drew, etc. Now that my son is reading chapter books, are there good series out there?

 

He loves Tom Swift but it's a bit above him. He is currently at the level of Magic Tree House. What are other books, a bit low on the twaddle end if possible, that would be around that level?

 

Is there a boy equivalent of American Girls? Something with exciting fiction that deals with American History?

 

Any on science? He loves science.

[bethben]

My son (7 years old) has loved:

Boxcar children

Cam Jansen ( a little too easy?)

Jigsaw Jones

A-Z Mysteries

Capital Kids Mysteries

Cul-de-sac Kids books by Beverly Lewis

3 Cousins Detective Club by Elspeth Campbell Murphy

My Fathers Dragon (and follow up books - least bit of "twaddle")

Magic School Bus chapter books (which contain a bunch of fun science stuff)

 

I'm not sure what you consider "twaddle", they are all a little bit "non-classic", but fun to read. I'd say the first 20 books of the boxcar children are the best reading and My Father's Dragon books. Most of the above are not on the same level as a Star Wars book or Babysitter Club book.

 

Beth

[In The Great White North]

Ds went from Magic Treehouse to Encyclopedia Brown to Hardy Boys.

 

The Secret Seven is about the same level as Encyclopedia Brown, the Famous Five series is about the same as the Hardy Boys (older version),

 

Others I remember include Tom Swift, Lucky Starr (by Asimov), Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Series, Emil by Astrid Lindgren, and the Thornton Burgess series.

 

Some Landmarks are easier than others and would be appropriate now.

[Pink Fairy]

I second the Magic School Bus series--my "sciencey" boy loves these.

[CLHCO]

I second the Magic School Bus series--my "sciencey" boy loves these.

Oh, I agree except that he's read or heard most of these already. I was trying to find out what other series are on the same level. I don't think he's ready for anything above this yet.

 

I'll do some looking. He was okay with an A to Z one but it didn't strike him like Magic Tree House. He likes adventure and the one he read seemed a bit more intriguing mystery.

 

Edit: Okay, DUH. I should read, not skim. You said Magic School Bus, not Tree House.

 

Great! I'll look for those.

[Annie Laurie]

There are a ton of books in the Nate the Great series.

[CLHCO]

By twaddle, I really meant I wanted to avoid Captain Underpants. :D

 

I'm okay with moder, fun adventure if it's not full of bad attitudes and rude humor.

[Hoggirl]

The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Ralph Mouse

There's a third one I don't remember.

 

She has several different books that she has written, though many of the titles are escaping my feeble brain right now!

 

He also enjoyed the Boxcar children as someone else previously mentioned.

 

Also, how about

Charlotte's Web

Stuart Little

The Trumpet of the Swan

 

I realize these aren't "series," but your ds might like them.

[Ali in OR]

You might take a look at Hank the Cowdog. I've heard good things about them. I have girls, but my youngest is a big dog fanatic so I picked one up as a read-aloud, but we just started it last night so I can't really speak from experience yet. I found chapter 1 amusing. And it looked like there were about 50 in the series if you're looking for quantity...

[charlotteb]

My son has really enjoyed the "Childhood of Famous Americans" series. There are probably close to 100 books total in the series. Definately no twaddle there! He's learned quite a bit from them.

[Alice]

The Soup books by Robert Newton Peck. I liked these as a kid (although I'm not a boy :)). We just listened to one on tape in the car and ds really liked it.

[swellmomma]

I have not read the pages of replies yet so I apologize if I repeat anything. We just bought a book called the Lightening Theif. The hero is actually a boy with hyperactivity issues, he does get into trouble but int eh end is the hero. There is a few more in the series but I have only gotten the one so far. I have also been thinking about the "Boys of Grit" series for him. Stories of boys from "rough" situations making the most of it and persevering. We have read things like hardy boys, encyclopedia brown etc but with my ADHD son I wanted him to see characters/people (specifically boys) who can overcome anything and succeed.

[Lori D.]

Here are some fun titles my boys enjoyed when they were making that jump into early chapter books:

 

2nd-3rd grade level

- Moongobble and Me (series) (Coville) -- gentle fantasy adventure

- The Littles (series) (Petersen) -- adventures of a tiny family

- Jigsaw Jones (series) (Prellar) -- boy detective

- Commander Toad (series) (Yolen) -- silly, punning fun

- Aunt Eater series; Inspector Hopper (Cushman) -- gentle mysteries

- Viking Adventure (Bulla) -- sailing with Viking explorers

- Sword in the Tree (Bulla) -- medieval boy tries to clear his father's name and find his sword

- Riding the Pony Express (Bulla) -- boy has to stand in for his father and deliver the mail

- Brendan the Navigator (Fritz) -- possibly the first European to discover the New World

- The Story of Thomas Alva Edison (Davidson)

- Helen Keller (Davidson)

- Louis Braille (Davidson)

- Five True Dog Stories; Seven True Horse Stories; Nine True Dolphin Stories (Davidson)

- Stone Fox (Gardiner) -- boy and sled dog adventure

- DK Readers: Aladdin (Kerven) -- gentle retelling of Arabian Nights tales

- The Robinson Crusoe Reader (Cowles) -- gentle adaptation of the classic shipwreck adventure

 

3rd grade level

- Great Illustrated Classics series

- Toots and the Upside Down House; Toots Underground (Hughes) -- fantasy adventure

- The Borrowers (series) (Norton) -- adventures of a tiny family

- Charlie & the Chocolate Factory; Great Glass Elevator (Dahl) -- fantasy adventure

- Pippi Longstockings; Pippi in the South Seas (Astrid) -- fun tall tale adventure

- The Bears on Hemlock Mountain (Dalgliesh) -- fun tall tale

- The Whipping Boy (Fleischman) -- fun tall tale adventure

- McBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm (Fleischman) -- fun tall tale

- The Cricket in Times Square (Selden)

- Charlotte's Web; Trumpet of the Swan (White)

- Dolphins and Me; Dolphin Treasure -- adventures of a scuba diver and dolphin friends

- Follow My Leader (Garfield) -- blinded in an accident, a boy gets a guide dog

- Twenty and Ten (Bishop) -- WWII French children hide Jewish children

- The Little Riders (Shemin) -- WWII occupied Europe

 

 

Others on this board have mentioned these series as great transition into chapter book series:

- Billy and Blaze series

- Dragon Slayer Academy series

- Boxcar Children series

 

 

You specifically asked for historical readers; here are some gentle chapter books for historical fiction; below are some terrific "stepped readers" for US historical events and people, at about a 2nd-4th grade level, depending on the book.

 

- Viking Adventure (Bulla) -- 1000s, Vikings

- A Single Shard (Park) -- 1100s Korea

- The Kite Fighters (Park) -- 1400s Korea

- The Sword in the Tree (Bulla) -- Medieval England

- Pocahontas and the Strangers (Bulla) -- Colonial US

- A Lion to Guard Us (Bulla) -- Colonial US

- Skippack School (de Angeli) -- Colonial U.S.

- The Courage of Sarah Noble (Dalgliesh) -- Colonial US

- Robert Fulton, Boy Craftsman (Henry) -- inventor of steam engine as a boy

- Phoebe the Spy (Griffin) --American Revolution - true story

- Hannah (Wheldon) -- blind pioneer girl

- Secret Valley (Bulla) -- pioneers/Gold Rush

- The Cabin Faced West (Fritz) -- pioneer girl

- Riding the Pony Express (Bulla) -- Pony Express

 

 

Stepped Readers -- non-fiction, historical fiction, and adventure titles:

 

- Tut's Mummy: Lost and Found (Donnelly)

- Flying Horse: The Story of Pegasus (Mason)

- Snake Hair: The Story of Medusa (Spinner)

- The Trojan Horse: How the Greeks Won the War (Little)

- Pompeii... Buried Alive! (Davis)

- Ice Mummy: Discovery of a 3,000 year old Man (Dubowski)

- To The Top! Climbing the World's Highest Mountain (Kramer)

 

 

 

U.S. HISTORY - Stepped Readers

 

1600s

- Pocahontas: An American Princess (Milton)

- The True Story of Pocahontas (Penner)

- The First Thanksgiving (Hayward)

 

1700s

- Small Wolf (Benchley)

- Finding Providence (Avi)) -- Colonial; founding of Rhode Island capital

- Johnny Appleseed: My Story (Harrison)

- George Washington's Mother (Fritz) -- Colonial

- Paul Revere's Ride (Corey) -- Colonial

- The 18 Penny Goose (Walker) -- Colonial

- Sam the Minuteman (Benchley) -- Colonial

- George the Drummer Boy (Benchley) -- Colonial

 

1800s

- Trail of Tears (Bruchac) -- Native Americans, 1830s

- Chang's Paper Pony (Coerr) -- Gold Rush; Chinese immigrants

- The Drinking Gourd (Monjo) -- Underground Railroad

- Escape North! Story of Harriet Tubman (Kulling) -- Underground Railroad

- "Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express (Coerr) -- Pony Express

- Civil War Sub: Mystery of the Hunley (Jerome) -- Civil War

- USS Monitor: Iron Warship That Changed the World (Thompson) -- Civil War

- Just a Few Words, Mr. Lincoln: Story of Gettysburg (Fritz) -- Civil War

- Abe Lincoln's Hat (Brenner)

- The Long Way to a New Land (Sandin)

- The Long Way Westward (Sandin)

- Wagon Train (Kramer)

- Wagon Wheels (Brenner)

- The Josefina Story Quilt (Coerr)

- Snowshoe Thompson (Levinson)

- Sitting Bull (Penner)

- Dinosaur Hunter (Alphin)

- Prairie School (Avi)

 

1900s

- First Flight: The Story of Tom Tate and the Wright Brothers" (Shea)

- Clara and the Bookwagon (Levinson)

- Eat My Dust! Henry Ford's First Race (Kulling)

- Man O'War (Mckerly) -- 1920s undefeated race horse

- Night Flight: Charles Lindbergh (Kramer)

- Dust for Dinner (Turner) -- Dust Bowl/Depresssion

- Horse Named Seabiscuit (Duvowski) -- 1930s race horse; grandson of Man O'War

- Martin Luther King, Jr. and the March on Washington (Ruffin)

- Race Into Space (Arnold)

- Moonwalk (Donnelly)

 

 

STEPPED READERS -- Non Fiction

 

- Greg's Microscope (Selsam)

- Hill of Fire (Lewis)

- Volcanoes! (Arnold)

- Earthquakes (Dussling) -- includes photos of 1964 quake in Alaska

- Quakes (McMorrow)

- Twisters! (Hayden)

- DK Reader: Days of Knights (Maynard)

- Giant Squid: Mystery of the Deep (Dussling)

- The True Story of Balto (Staniford)

- Barry: The Bravest Saint Bernard (Hall)

- Buddy: The First Seeing Eye Dog

[Book Crazy]

The Flat Stanley series is good. There are about 5 or 6 books in the series.

 

Artemis Fowl series. 5 in this series.

 

Owen Foote, Super Spy, is part of a series of books.

 

Andrew Lost is also a series of books. I think that the first one is called Andrew Lost on the Dog.

 

Time Warp Trio series.

 

I would not call these excellent literature, but they are good.

[Susie in CA]

Both my boys love 'Moongobble and Me.' These are three books by Bruce Coville.

 

Susie

[Laura Corin]

Hobbes liked the Magic School Bus chapter books.

 

Laura

[CLHCO]

Lori D., thanks for posting such a long and well laid out post.

 

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. I'm going to copy them to a word document, print and take to the library. I'm sure I can come up with a few good options. :thumbup1:

[Crissy]

You might take a look at Hank the Cowdog. I've heard good things about them. I have girls, but my youngest is a big dog fanatic so I picked one up as a read-aloud, but we just started it last night so I can't really speak from experience yet. I found chapter 1 amusing. And it looked like there were about 50 in the series if you're looking for quantity...

 

Ali, if you are not opposed to audio books, do check out a few Hank books on tape. The author does the reading, and the stories somehow become even more hilarious.

My boys love imitating the voices of Hank and Drover in everyday situations to make me laugh.:D

[JaneNickerson]

KidWitness Tales from Heritage Builders (FOTF)....Biblical history

Christian Liberty Nature readers

Old Homestead Tales (Neil Wayne Northey)

Janette Oke's Animal Friends

Sugar Creek Gang (Paul Hutchens)

Wally McDoogle (Bill Myers)

Choose Your Own Adventures

Trailblazer Books (Dave and Neta Jackson)...Christian heroes

 

http://www.libraryand ed.com is a fantastic resource!!

[Kathleen in VA]

My son has really enjoyed the "Childhood of Famous Americans" series. There are probably close to 100 books total in the series. Definately no twaddle there! He's learned quite a bit from them.

 

:iagree: My son keeps requesting more of these. On Homeschool Day at Borders he picked out 4-5 he hadn't read yet and today he scanned the list on the back of the book and made another shopping list. Can't seem to get enough of them.

[AuntPol]

My son liked:

 

Ricky Ricotta

Secrets of Droon

Dragon Slayers Academy

Time Warp Trio

Baily School Kids

 

and Deltora Quest (which I actually liked -fantasy is our genre in this house lol)

 

 

He liked Ready Freddy books too -the main character has a lot of similar problems that DS had -older sister issues, last one in class to lose tooth, afraid of vampires, etc.

[Susan in TN]

The Edward Eager books (Half Magic, Knight's Castle, etc.) and also the short Roald Dahl books (The Giraff, the Pelly, and Me, The Magic Finger, etc.) I'd say these are above Twaddle, but not quite great classics.

[Misty]

Have you heard of Max Elliot Andersen? He has a good Christian Adventure series for reluctant boy readers, ages 8 & up. He is getting good reviews and he's also a member on the bookroom yahoo group, which is mostly homeschoolers, but some writers and book collectors hang out there too.

 

His website... http://www.maxbooks.9k.com/

 

You can find his books on Amazon too.

[Lori D.]

Here are a few more I just thought of:

- Apple & the Arrow (Buff) -- adventure of William Tell and his son

- Eric the Red & Leif the Lucky (Schiller) -- adventure of Viking explorers

- Grain of Rice (Pittman) -- fun fable

- Light at Tern Rock

 

 

US History:

- Can't You Make Them Behave, King George? (Fritz)

- What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin? (Fritz)

- Where do You Think You're Going, Christopher Columbus? (Fritz)

- Where Was Patrick Henry on the 29th of May? (Fritz)

- Who's That Stepping on Plymouth Rock? (Fritz)

- Why Don't You Get a Horse, Sam Adams? (Fritz)

- Will You Sign Here, John Hancock? (Fritz)

[skissugar]

after magic tree house my son went onto dragons slayer academy, since he has read all of dsa he is waiting the next book to come out and reading prince caspian so he can see the movie after the book (a rule in our house).

[Guest pricetl]

There's sports books by Matt Christopher. My 6 year old has enjoyed those, but I haven't read them. For the Magic Treehouse books, there's a website with trivia questions and a passport that my son loved.

[StephanieZ]

nt

[newbie]

;)Hi,

Have you tried christianbook.com. My girls were getting older and all the pre teen/ teen books at Barnes and Noble were a little racy. So I was already getting school books from them and tried their reading books. Its just like barnes and noble where you put in age and what they like. You get a ton of stuff. I dont have to worry about what they are reading whether its fantasy or historical fiction. I love it.

 

Good luck,

jy