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Your favorite read aloud for 11- and 13-yo boys?


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We just finished The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (loved it), and I don't have anything lined up. (I'm holding off on Huck Finn until next year.) The boys will listen to nearly anything, but they have a special affinity for adventure stories about boys. The Narnia series, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, and My Side of the Mountain were all hits. Any suggestions? Thanks!

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Fantasy adventures like Narnia

- Phantom Tollbooth (Juster)

- The Never Ending Story (Ende)

- The Hobbit (Tolkien)

- Lord of the Rings trilogy (Tolkien)

- Farmer Giles of Ham (Tolkien)

- Smith of Wooton Major (Tolkien)

- Secret of Platform 13 (Ibbotson)

- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (O'Brien)

- Watership Down (Adams)

- Book of Dragons (Nesbit) -- short story collection

- Five Children and It; The Phoenix and the Carpet (Nesbit)

- Knight's Castle (Eager) -- and Half Magic, Magic By the Lake, Time Garden, Seven Day Magic

 

Survival/realistic adventures like My Side of the Mountain

- The Incredible Journey (Burnford)

- The Black Stallion (Farley)

- The Cay (Taylor)

- Call It Courage (Armstrong)

- Born in the Year of Courage (Crofford)

- Island of the Blue Dolphins (O'Dell)

- Kildee House (Montgomery)

- Little Britches (Moody)

- The Toothpaste Millionaire (Merrill)

 

Historical setting adventure like Mr. Bowditch

- Shadow Hawk (Norton) -- ancient Egypt

- Hittite Warrior (Williamson) -- ancient Egypt/Israel/Hittite

- Ben Hur (Wallace) -- ancient Israel/Rome

- The Great and Terrible Quest (Lovett) -- medieval

- Adam of the Road (Gray) -- medieval

- The King's Fifth (O'Dell) -- 16th century conquistadors

- Walk The World's Rim (Baker) -- 16th century conquistadors

- The Master Puppeteer (Paterson) -- 1700s Japan

- Sign of the Beaver (Speare) -- colonial US Native American

- Diary of an Early American Boy (Sloane) -- colonial US

- The Journeyman (Caldwell) -- colonial US

- Midshipman Quinn series (Styles) -- British navy, Napoleonic Wars

- Johnny Tremain (Forbes) -- Revolutionary War

- Guns for General Washington (Reit)

- Across Five Aprils (Hunt) -- Civil War

- Rifles for Watie (Keith) -- Civil War

- The Twenty-One Balloons (du Bois) -- 1800s Jules Verne-like adventure

- The Great Wheel (Lawson) -- turn of century first ferris wheel

- Case of the Baker Street Irregular (Newman) -- late 1800s Sherlock Holmes

 

Older classics like Tom Sawyer

- Treasure Island (Stevenson)

- Oliver Twist (Dickens)

- The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas)

- Around the World in 80 Days (Verne)

- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (Verne)

- Journey to the Center of the Earth (Verne)

- Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (and others by Howard Pyle)

- Call of the Wild; White Fang (London)

- Tanglewood Tales; The Wonder Book (Hawthorne)

- The Lost World (Doyle)

- Ivanhoe (Scott)

 

Non-fiction adventures

- Kon Tiki (Heyersdahl) -- 1940s crossing of the Pacific on a log raft

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My husband thinks that Kipling's Captains Courageous (about developing a good work ethic) is one of the best read alouds. We also enjoyed it again as an audiobook read by George Guidall (audible.com). The others that come to mind instantly are Shackleton's South, Stevenson's Kidnapped, and Ralph Moody's Little Britches (and every book in the series...these are must reads).

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Swiss Family Robinson is all adventure! 

 

Also:

 

The Hobbit, Tolkien

Watership Down, Richard Adams

The Yearling, Marjorie Kinan Rawlings

Freckles, Gene Stratton Porter

The Hound of Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle (we all loved this)

The Scarlet Pimpernel (a great twist at the end!), Baronness Orczy

 

Lisa

 

 

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I love these threads. Thanks OP. I post this question often so here is my last thread in case it helps at all.

I am also perusing the read-aloud threads again because we've been on a streak of (excellent) girl books...Flora, Calpurnia, Pollyanna. Need to read a boy book next though I'm itching to read Hitty, her first 100 years with him.

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/512627-care-to-share-your-favorite-read-aloud-for-4th5th6th-grade/?hl=%2Bread%26%238208aloud

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We loved:

 

Sign of the Beaver

Crispin Cross of Lead

Gifted Hands - The Ben Carson Story (the audio was terrific!)

Courage to Run

Amos Fortune, Free Man

The Golden Goblet

God King

 

GIfted Hands is such a rewarding read.

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For what ages is it appropriate? Too much for K, as in, I should have the 9 and 12 yo's read it themselves, or is it appropriate for the whole family?

 

 

I think the K'er would be bored more than anything. It's a classical American self-improvement narrative. The movie starring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Kimberly Elise might be better suited for a whole family experience than reading the book aloud. The 9/12yos might want to pick up the book and read it for themselves after seeing the movie. (Carson has some other books as well, less memoir-specific and I think increasingly libertarian in political bent.) 

 

Possible content issues: Ben Carson has episodes in high school where he gets in fights and associates with a somewhat unsavory element. His mother has bouts with mental illness for which she needs to be (secretly) hospitalized. Once he becomes a doctor/surgeon there are sick child patients. 

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Guest memoni687

We just finished reading The White House.  It is book 2 of the I.Q. Series by Roland Smith.  It's about kids who's parents are involved with spy missions, it is realistic without too much gory detail, and it's themes are very current, terrorist threats and plots against the president etc.... with some nice plot twists.  It is told from the perspective of some very adventurous and resilient kids and my 11 year old son loved it.  (This is a secular book)

 

Also, two books that are faith building and amazing true adventure stories that all 5 of my kids loved were:

God's Adventurer: Hudson Taylor by Phyllis Thompson and

Gladys Aylward: The Adventure of a lifetime by Janet and Geoff Benge.  

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Thank you all! My 10.5 is hard to get interested in anything for longer than 10minutes.... Unless he really really really likes it (He just finished "how to steal a dog" in couple hours because he was so intrigued if you can really profit from it... :huh: )

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