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ISO recs for fun books for 10th grade boys

mlktwins

By mlktwins,
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mlktwins

mlktwins

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Any recommendations for good books or a series for 10th grade boys (for Christmas)?  We used to use the library extensively, but we aren't at the moment.

They are advanced readers so I don't mind books for young adults or adults, but prefer they didn't contain TEA scenes 😁!  They were Harry Potter, Hunger Games types of kids.  They also read and enjoyed One Second After and it's sequel.  They also liked the Itch series by Simon Mayo.  They have read a lot over the years.  These are just to give you an idea of what they like.  One of my boys has also read a couple of Agatha Christie books.  

 

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Granny_Weatherwax

Granny_Weatherwax

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2 hours ago, Acorn said:

Mine has spent a year in Discworld by Terry Pratchett.

I was going to suggest Terry Pratchett!! TP was recommended to me this past January and I can't get enough. I'm on my 11th book.

To the OP: the Discworld series has 40 books with mini series throughout. I began with The Wee Free Men and the Tiffany Aching series. There are also some stand alones that are wonderful; The Amazing Maurice is one. There have been some television series made based off some of the novels. I attempted to watch one but it was too dark for me. I much prefer the Discworld of my mind. Oh, there hasn't been any Tea in the books I've read but there are some mild inuendos (the witches are midwives after all).

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Granny_Weatherwax

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If they enjoy formulaic novels, the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz is entertaining.  Alex is a reluctant orphaned teenage spy who enjoys many adventures saving the world from evil minds. I enjoyed the first book but was disappointed with books 2 & 3 as the pattern in the books was similar.  The books were good enough to keep me reading the series, however, and I will probably finish them in 2021.

Anthony Horowitz is a prolific writer and has many books and television series to his credit.

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mlktwins

mlktwins

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On 11/30/2020 at 10:02 AM, Homeschool Mom in AZ said:

Orson Scott Card's Ender series

 

On 11/30/2020 at 10:13 AM, gardenmom5 said:

1ds really liked the Wheels of Time series by Robert Jordan.   

He also really liked the Ender's Shadow series that is ancillary to the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card.

LotR.

@Homeschool Mom in AZ and @gardenmom5

Thank you both.  My boys have only read the 1st book Ender's Game.  If I get a couple more, which should I get?  I know @gardenmom5 recommended the Ender Shadow's Series.

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mlktwins

mlktwins

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On 11/30/2020 at 12:02 PM, Laura Corin said:

My children loved Summerland by Michael Chabon, as well as the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. 

Thank you.  They have read Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the next 2 in that series.  I have Summerland in my cart :-).

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mlktwins

mlktwins

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On 11/30/2020 at 12:11 PM, The Accidental Coach said:

If they enjoy formulaic novels, the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz is entertaining.  Alex is a reluctant orphaned teenage spy who enjoys many adventures saving the world from evil minds. I enjoyed the first book but was disappointed with books 2 & 3 as the pattern in the books was similar.  The books were good enough to keep me reading the series, however, and I will probably finish them in 2021.

Anthony Horowitz is a prolific writer and has many books and television series to his credit.

Thank you!  I have the first book of the Alex Rider series in my Amazon cart :-).

 

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mlktwins

mlktwins

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On 11/30/2020 at 11:57 AM, The Accidental Coach said:

I was going to suggest Terry Pratchett!! TP was recommended to me this past January and I can't get enough. I'm on my 11th book.

To the OP: the Discworld series has 40 books with mini series throughout. I began with The Wee Free Men and the Tiffany Aching series. There are also some stand alones that are wonderful; The Amazing Maurice is one. There have been some television series made based off some of the novels. I attempted to watch one but it was too dark for me. I much prefer the Discworld of my mind. Oh, there hasn't been any Tea in the books I've read but there are some mild inuendos (the witches are midwives after all).

Thank you!  I currently have Discworld 1 and 2 in my cart.  Should I start with The Amazing Maurice instead?

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HS Mom in NC

HS Mom in NC

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14 minutes ago, mlktwins said:

 

@Homeschool Mom in AZ and @gardenmom5

Thank you both.  My boys have only read the 1st book Ender's Game.  If I get a couple more, which should I get?  I know @gardenmom5 recommended the Ender Shadow's Series.

My girls and my husband particularly liked Speaker for Dead.  Here's the series boxed: https://www.amazon.com/Ender-Quartet-Boxed-Set-Xenocide/dp/0765362430/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=orson+scott+card+ender+series&qid=1607976181&sr=8-2

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mlktwins

mlktwins

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On 11/30/2020 at 10:45 AM, matrips said:

Do they like history at all?  My teens have read many of Michael and Jeff Shaara’s books, and Stephen Ambrose as well.

Yes, they do!  One of their favorite subjects.  Any particular books they should try first from these author's?

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gardenmom5

gardenmom5

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12 minutes ago, mlktwins said:

 

@Homeschool Mom in AZ and @gardenmom5

Thank you both.  My boys have only read the 1st book Ender's Game.  If I get a couple more, which should I get?  I know @gardenmom5 recommended the Ender Shadow's Series.

The series are meant to be read in order - they build upon each other.  You have to read Ender's Game before reading Ender's shadow. 

I liked the actual sequals to Ender's Game (Speaker for the Dear, Xenocide, Children of the Mind - to be read in that order) - it drove 1dd mad because there is a lot of story telling/history that's more background.   I loved them. 

SftD starts when Ender is 35 - OSC wrote a novel to "fill the gap" from the end of the bugger wars to when Speaker starts - so to speak  _ Ender in Exile_  - long after the others were published.  I haven't read it.   

There's a short story  (Investment Counselor, / in his book "First meetings"), somewhere, where Ender meets Jane.  (Jane is introduced in Speaker - but he knows her well by that point.)  I love Jane.  Everyone loves Jane.  Which means I have to have it somewhere, as I've read it.  And now i want to go read it again.

 

My kids all went and saw the movie -and came home and told me not to waste my money.

Ender's Shadow breaks off from Ender's Game - but gives the history of Bean and other characters, and the series is meant to be read in order.  It is not about Ender, and he's not really in that series.

Anyway - there are a lot of Ender books:

THE ENDER UNIVERSE

Ender series
Ender’s Game / Speaker for the Dead / Xenocide / Children of the Mind / Ender in Exile / Children of the Fleet

Ender’s Shadow series
Ender’s Shadow / Shadow of the Hegemon / Shadow Puppets / Shadow of the Giant / Shadows in Flight

The First Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
Earth Unaware / Earth Afire / Earth Awakens

The Second Formic War (with Aaron Johnston)
The Swarm / The Hive

Ender novellas
A War of Gifts / First Meetings

 

 

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matrips

matrips

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1 hour ago, mlktwins said:

Yes, they do!  One of their favorite subjects.  Any particular books they should try first from these author's?

I asterisked the first books my boys read by each author that got them hooked. If he likes them, he’ll probably like any of the others as well.  

Shaara:
Smoke at Dawn

*Killer Angels


Ambrose:

*Band of Brothers

D day

Citizen Soldiers

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Tanaqui

Tanaqui

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1 hour ago, mlktwins said:

Thank you!  I currently have Discworld 1 and 2 in my cart.  Should I start with The Amazing Maurice instead?

 

Oh, you definitely shouldn't start with the first two. Pterry didn't really hit his stride until a bit later. (And the very last books, sadly, show the effects of his early-onset dementia. They're okay, but....)

So this is the reading order guide for Discworld. Pterry thought we all should start with Sourcery. There are worse books to start with, but he's simply wrong. Now, I started with The Truth, which, as a standalone is a good middle-of-the-series intro, and still my favorite. However, starting with Guards! Guards! and then continuing with some of the Watch books before circling around to the Wizards books (Moving Pictures to begin with) is also acceptable and fairly non-controversial, and then once you've gone through those you can begin on the Witch books....

And for that, you can do worse than to just run through the entire Tiffany Aching subseries, beginning with Wee Free Men.

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Tanaqui

Tanaqui

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39 minutes ago, brehon said:

@Tanaqui, is this similar to the Great Reading Order Debate for the Narnia series? 😂 

(Years ago I read a really humorous piece about publication date v. chronological order. I wish I could find it again. I was belly laughing.)

 

There's only seven Narnia books. That's 5040* possible reading orders, many of which are self-evidently wrong. (For example, once you reject all the reading orders that start with The Last Battle, you're down to just 720 possible reading orders.)

There are many more Discworld books, and most possible orders are not obviously wrong, just a matter of preference.

* My 8th grade math teacher was big on cumulative review. Every test after we studied factorials had a question on factorials. That question was always "What is 7!"? It didn't take me long to realize that our calculators had a factorial button and there was no need to laboriously multiply 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 each time. It took me even less time after that to simply memorize the answer. Most of my classmates never did either of those things, and kept on punching in the numbers right up until our final. I have never forgotten that 7! = 5040, and what's more, that little trivia fact has come in handy many times in my  life. I never expected it would, and yet it has.

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Granny_Weatherwax

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It seems like Tanaqui is more knowledgeable than I am regarding the Discworld. I began with The Wee Free Men and read the rest of the Tiffany Aching series this year. The final Tiffany Aching book is Terry Pratchett's final book; it was unfinished when he passed away but I am grateful it was published as is.

There is a great website about the Discworld: https://www.terrypratchettbooks.com/book-series/discworld/

There are also Discworld fandom sites. One can truly get lost in the Discworld (and non-discworld books as well). The above site gives you a starting point.

 

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