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Posted

He's been reading Harry Potter and is getting tired of the length of the books. He's a good reader, but doesn't particularly enjoy reading. Any ideas as I head to the library tomorrow?

 

Thanks!

Posted

because I realized how many good 9 yo books there are out there that I didn't want him to miss. He can enjoy HP the rest of his life.

 

Ok - once he got turned onto Roald Dahl - well it was all over. I had to tell him to stop reading -his books are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, and others.

 

He also enjoyed Mr. Popper's Penguins, The Adventures of Pinocchio, The Little Prince - and I just realized you can view these on my blog......

HTH

Posted

fantasy/sci-fi series:

Children of the Lamp (P. B. Kerr) - but these books are fairly long

Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Rick Riordan)

LionBoy (Zizou Corder)

Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer)

City of Ember, People of Sparks, Prophet of Yonwood, 4th book due in November (duPrau)

Rowan of Rin (Rodda)

Septimus Heap (Sage) - but these books are very long

 

mystery:

Samurai Mysteries (Dorothy Hoobler)

Five Ancestors (Jeff Stone)

Posted

Before my boys really "clicked" with reading and liked to read (not till about age 11yo or so), it helped to let them read below their reading level for their free reading time. Also at that age, they enjoyed a lot of:

 

- "Search and Find" type of books (like Eye Spy, Where's Waldo, etc.)

- "comic style" books like Marcia Williams' book on The Iliad & The Odyssey

- Calvin & Hobbes comic collections

- heavily illustrated children's non-fiction from the library on topics such as roller coasters or movie special effects;

- exploded view illustrated books with captions -- like ones on the Star Wars vehicles, or on a movie like Toy Story.

 

And keep up family reading aloud, or books on tape in the car, and perhaps try some "popcorn reading" ("you read a page, I read a page") to keep interest going, esp. with school readers.

 

Below is a variety of types of books, and of reading levels. A lot of the 3rd grade readers are very short, but good. That can be a real sense of accomplishment and a bit of a break from a HP book! Hope something here helps! Warmly, Lori D.

 

 

NON FICTION

 

3rd grade level

- Pirates: Raiders of the High Seas (Maynard)

- Antarctic Adventure: Exploring the Frozen Continent (Martin)

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

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

- Mountain Climbing: Scaling the World's Highest Peaks (Martin)

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

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

- Giant Squid: Mystery of the Deep (Dussling)

- Race Into Space (Arnold)

- Moonwalk (Donnelly)

- The Wright Brothers (Reynolds)

- The Daring Escape of Ellen Craft (Moore)

- The Great Houdini: World Famous Magician & Escape Artist (Kulling)

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

- The Trojan Horse: The World's Greatest Adventure (Davies)

- Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky (Schiller) -- Viking explorers

- Days of the Knights (Maynard)

- The Story of Thomas Alva Edison (Davidson)

- Helen Keller (Davidson)

- Louis Braille (Davidson)

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

 

4th grade level

- Brendan the Navigator (Fritz)

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

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

- And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? (Fritz)

 

4th-5th grade level

- Land I Lost; Water Buffalo Days (Nhuong) -- memories of pre-war (rural Vietnam)

- Archimedes and the Door of Science (Bendick)

- Along Came Galileo (Bendick)

 

riddle books by Eisenberg and Hall

 

 

 

REAL LIFE

 

4th grade level

- The Toothpaste Millionaire (Merrill)

- Henry Huggins (series) (McCleary)

- Call it Courage (Sperry)

 

5th grade level

- Island of the Blue Dolphins (O'Dell)

- From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (Konigsburg)

- In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson (Lord)

- The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Robinson)

- Five on a Treasure Island (Blyton)

- The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Aiken) -- Victorian-like setting

 

 

 

FANTASY

 

3rf grade level

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

 

4th grade level

- Chronicles of Narnia (Lewis)

- City of Ember; People of Sparks (Du Prau)

- Land of Oz; Ozma of Oz (Baum) -- lively sequels; skip Wizard of Oz (dull/long)

- The Borrowers (series) (Norton)

- Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Fleming)

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

- Pippi Longstockings; Pippi in the South Seas (Astrid)

 

5th grade level

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

- The Father Christmas Letters (Tolkien)

- The Secret of Platform 13 (Ibbotson)

- The Phantom Tollbooth (Juster) -- boy journeys through a mathematical land

- The Never Ending Story (Ende)

- The Hobbit (Tolkien)

 

 

 

FUN TALL TALE

 

3rd grade level

- The Bears on Hemlock Mountain (Dalgliesh)

- McBroom's Wonderful One-Acre Farm (Fleischman)

 

4th grade level

- By the Great Horn Spoon (Fleischman)

- The Whipping Boy (Fleischman)

- The Cat Who Went to Heaven (Coatsworth)

- Adventures of TinTin (Herge)

 

5th grade level

- Rikki Tikki Tavi (Kipling)

- Just So Stories (Kipling)

- The Great Turkey Walk (Karr)

- Holes (Sachar)

 

 

 

HISTORY ADVENTURE

 

3rd grade level

- Viking Adventure (Bulla) -- Vikings discover New World

- The Arrow and the Apple (Buff) - William Tell

- Tales of Robin Hood (Claybourne)

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

- The Matchlock Gun (Edmonds) -- Colonial US

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

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

- Riding the Pony Express (Bulla)

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

 

4th grade level

- Detectives in Togas; Mystery of the Roman Ransom (Winterfeld) -- Ancient Rome

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

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

- The Door in the Wall (de Angeli) -- Medieval England

- The Sign of the Beaver (Speare) -- Colonial US / Native American

- Naya Nuki: The Shoshone Girl Who Ran -- friend of Sacajewea

- Behind Rebel Lines (Reit) -- teen girl disguised as a boy / Union spy in Civil War

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

- Land I Lost; Water Buffalo Days (Nhuong) -- memories of pre-war rural Vietnam

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

 

5th grade level

- God King (Williamson) -- ancient Egypt/Israel

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

- Ghost in the Tokaido Inn (Hoobler) -- Samurai Mysteries series; 1700s Japanese boy detective

- Born in the Year of Courage (Crofford) -- shipwrecked 1850s Japanese teen fisherboy

- Case of the Baker Street Irregular (Newman) -- 1890s boy helps Sherlock Holmes

- Snow Treasure (McSwigan))-- WWII Norweigan children hide the country's gold

 

 

 

ANIMALS (real)

 

3rd grade level

- Five True Dog Stories (Davidson)

- Seven True Horse Stories (Davidson)

- Nine True Dolphin Stories (Davidson)

- A Horse Named Seabiscuit (Duvowski)

- Man O'War: The Best Racehorse Ever (Mckerly)

- Horse Heroes (Petty)

- The Bravest Dog Ever: The True Story of Balto (Standiford)

- Barry, the Bravest St. Bernard (Hall)

- Buddy, the First Seeing Eye Dog (Moore)

- Dolphin Adventure; Dolphin Treasure; Dolphins and Me (Grover)

 

4th grade level

- Follow My Leader (Garfield)

- Stone Fox (Gardiner)

 

5th grade level

- The Black Stallion, The Black Stallion Returns, Island Stallion (Farley)

- My Side of the Mountain (George) -- and others in this series

 

 

 

ANIMALS (talking)

 

4th grade level

- Trumpet of the Swan (White)

- The Mouse and the Motorcycle (McCleary)

- Ben and I (Lawson)

- The Rescuers, Miss Bianca, Miss Bianca in the Orient (Sharpe)

- Basil of Baker Street (Titus)

 

5th grade level

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

  • 10 months later...
Posted
My son enjoys Hank the Cowdog books. They are a hoot.

 

My 10 year old LOVES Hank!! I would also recommend listening to a few on audiobooks and so you can hear the voices in your head. They are WONDERFUL!!

 

My 10yo also liked Beverly Cleary books. He likes fantasy like Harry Potter, so he also liked Charlie Bone (not particularly impressive literature), and the Fablehaven books (which we have been really enjoying listening to on audiobook).

Posted

The Percy Jackson series! My son was a very reluctant reader and the Percy Jackson books not only got him hooked on reading, they got him interested in Greek mythology, ancient civilizations, etc. I know of 3 other boys the same age who were also totally hooked by Percy Jackson. It's the "new" Harry Potter! :001_smile:

 

Jackie

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