books for holiday gifts / vacation reads

[serendipitous journey]

I'm looking for ideas for books for my boys, but would be delighted to see everybody's ideas for good reads over the holiday. 

My elder DS is 14 yo and has recently loved: "Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" book and sequel (he's been coming back to this at intervals for a couple of years); Marissa Meyer's "Cinder" series; Dave Barry; Andy Weir's "The Martian"; nonfiction "How To" and "What If",  Aronson's "Trapped" and "MiG Pilot: The Final Escape of Lieutenant Belenko".  He doesn't enjoy dystopian literature at all; "Hunger Games" bombed.  Also Rick Riordan's never worked for him. 

Younger DS is 9 yo.  He thoroughly enjoyed Baldwin's "Don Quixote Retold for the Children" when we had it for school, likes fantasy graphic novels and adored the "Wings of Fire" series and read the "Warriors" for last year's holidays I think, and loves Julius Zebra -- I think we can gift him the Greek and joke books from Julius Zebra, which he doesn't have.

I'd be grateful for ideas!  So far I have:

• for elder:
  • Aronson's "Rising Water"
  • maybe nonfiction "Uncommon Knowledge". 
• for younger
  • continuations of "Julius Zebra"
• for both/family
  • Mouse Guard books

[annegables]

I have now recommended this author 3 times here in 24 hours, so I apologize if I sound like a broken record. We adore anything by Brandon Mull (although I didnt like Candy Shop Wars as much as his other stuff). 5 Kingdoms is brilliant. 

* Chronicles of Prydain

If your younger liked the Don Quixote book, would he like the Great Illustrated CLassics versions of other books? My one kid loves these! Our library has a bunch

* Michael Vey

* Mysterious Benedict Society

Fog Diver (2 book series)

[Lori D.]

For your 14yo, possibly:

sort of similar to Calpurnia Tate
- Jim the Boy (Earley)
- Summer of the Monkeys (Rawls)
- Little Britches (Moody)
- My Family and Other Animals (Durrell)

sort of alternative world in their own ways, like Cinder is for its world:
- Leviathan, Behemoth, Goliath (Westerfeld) -- trilogy; alternate WW1, rollicking steam punk
- Bromeliad trilogy: Truckers, Diggers, Wings (Pratchett) -- light, humorous, 

nonfiction
- Bomb: The Race to Build, and Steal, the World's Most Dangerous Weapon (Sheinkin) -- and others by this author
- Kon Tiki (Heyersdahl)
- The Colditz Story (Reid)
 

For your 9yo, possibly:

more classics sort of similar to the retold Don Quixote 
- Tales from the Odyssey (Osborne) -- series
- The Robinson Crusoe Reader (Cowles)
- Great Classics Illustrated series -- these are great because every other page has a full-page illustration

sort of similar to Warriors
- Varjak Paw; The Outlaw Varjak Paw (Said) -- cat clans
- The Green Ember series (Smith) -- rabbits
- Lucky (Hill) -- squirrel clans

sort of similar to Wings of Fire
- Dragon series: Dragon of the Lost Sea (#1); Dragon Steel (#2); Dragon Cauldron (#3); Dragon War (#4) (Yep)
- How to Train Your Dragon series (Cowell)
- Dragon Rider series (Funke)

other talking animals/adventures
- The Rescuers, Miss Bianca, The Turret, Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines, Miss Bianca in the Orient (Sharp) -- wonderful vocabulary; great humor; well-written adventures

Possible family books?

medieval setting
- Mad Wolf's Daughter (Magras)
- Adam of the Road (Gray)

animals
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (O'Brien)
- Redwall (Jacques)
- One Hundred and One Dalmatians (Smith)
- Pax (Pennypacker)

dragons (but not graphic novels), sort of like Wings of Fire
- Dragon Keepers chronicles (Paul) -- gr. 4-8
- Enchanted Forest chronicles (Wrede) -- gr. 5-8

[Lori D.]

On a side note, I see in your signature you all just started Early Modern... NOT as a gift, but just as books to go along with the roughly 1650-1850 time period of Early Moderns, here's a list I just stumbled across and will reprint here for you, in case something on this might work as a family read-aloud to go with your History time period. Cheers! Lori D.

EARLY MODERN TOPICS & TITLES

1650-1675
"classics"
     Pilgrim's Progress (Bunyan) -- an adapted version
World historical fiction:
     England = The Dark Frigate (Boardman)
     England = A Parcel of Patterns (Walsh)
     England = Master Cornhill (MacGraw)
US historical fiction:
     James Printer: A Novel of Rebellion (Jacobs)
nonfiction
     Rats Bulls and Flying Machines: A History of the Renaissance & Reformation (Prum)

1675-1700
"classics"
     France = Charles Perrault fairy tales
World historical fiction:
     France = Escape Across the Wide Sea (Kirkpatrick)
US historical fiction:
     Witch of Blackbird Pond (George)

1700-1725
"classics"
     Robinson Crusoe (Dafoe)  -- an abridged or adapted version
World historical fiction:
     North Africa+England = King of the Wind
     Scotland = Bonnie Dundee (Sutcliff)
US historical fiction:
     The Ransom of Mercy Carter (Cooney)

1725-1750
"classics"
   Gulliver's Travels (Swift) -- an abridged or adapted version
World historical fiction:
     Africa/U.S. = Copper Sun (Draper)
     Caribbean = My Name is Not Angelica (O'Dell)
     England = Flame-Colored Taffeta (Sutcliff)
US historical fiction:
     Calico Bush (Field)

1750-1775
"classics" :
     Last of the Mohicans (Cooper) -- abridged/adapted/or graphic novel version
     Treasure Island (Stevenson) -- set in the 1700s; written in 1881
World historical fiction:
     Japan = Master Puppeteer (Paterson)
     Japan = The Ghost in the Tokaido Inn (or other Samurai mystery) (Hoobler)
     England = Stowaway (Hesse)
US historical fiction
    Light in the Forest (Richter)
    I Am Regina (Keehn)
    Indian Captive (Lenski)
    Guns for General Washington (Reit)

17775-1800
"classics"
     "Rip Van Winkle" (Irving) -- short story
      "Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Irving) -- short story
     A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) -- novel
World historical fiction:
     The Scarlet Pimpernel (Orczy) -- written in 1800s; set in French Revolution
US historical fiction:
     Seeds of America trilogy: Chains; Forge; Ashes (Anderson)
     Fever 1793 (Anderson)
     Johnny Tremain
     My Brother Sam is Dead (Collier)
     Carry On Mr. Bowditch (Latham)
     Naya Nuki, The Shoshone Girl Who Ran (Thomasma)

1800-1825
"classics"
     something by Jane Austen
     Frankenstein (Shelley)
     Tales from Shakespeare (Lamb)
     Ivanhoe (Scott) -- written in 1819, set in 1100s England
World historical fiction:
     England = Midshipman Quin series (Styles)
     England = The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (Avi)
     France = Betsy and the Emperor (Rabin)
US historical fiction:
     Naya Nuki (Thomasma)
     Sacajawea (Bruchac)
     Streams to the River, River to the Sea (O'Dell)
     Bold Journey (Bohner)
     The Journeyman (Yates)

1825-1850
"classics"
     fairy tales by brothers Grimm
     fairy tales by Hans Christian Anderson
     A Christmas Carol (Dickens)
     Adventures of Tom Sawyer (Twain) -- written 1870s, but set in 1830s
     short story by Edgar Allen Poe
     a version of the Arabian Nights -- date back to around 1000AD, but 1840 = first English translation
World historical fiction:
     Ireland = Nora Ryan's Song
     China/US = The Serpent's Children (Yep)
US historical fiction:
     A Gathering of Days (Blos)
     Slave Dancer (Fox)
     Lyddie (Paterson)
     The Birchbark House (Erdrich)
     Moccassin Trail (MacGraw)
     All Sails Set (Armstrong)
nonfiction
     Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shoguns (Blumberg)

1850-1860
"classics"
     Wondertales (Hawthorne) -- written in 1850s; they are versions of Ancient Greek myths
World historical fiction:
     Ireland = Nora Ryan's Song
     Japan = Heart of a Samurai (Preus)
     Japan = Rebels of the Heavenly Kingdon (Paterson)
US historical fiction:
     The Great Turkey Walk (Kerr)
     Elijah of Buxton (Curtis)
 

[Kareni]

Your older son might enjoy The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison.

Has he read Randall Munroe's Thing Explainer?

Regards,

Kareni