When I wrote about Link’s struggles with reading, I did not expect the flood of suggestions and ideas that poured it. The next day I wrote about how Kiki dared Link to tackle an 800 page book (Eye of the World by Robert Jordan.) Since so many of you expressed interest, I feel that I should give an update. Jordan’s work proved to be too complex and slow-paced for Link. He’s abandoned the attempt. Instead I’ve switched him over to Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings. This is the first in a series that was recommended by several of you. I agree that it is a much simpler and more cheerful read than Jordan’s works. It is a better place for an 11 year old to start. We’re taking it slow and steady. I’m insisting that he read 10 pages per day. Hopefully within a week we’ll reach a point where Link is caught by the story and doesn’t want to stop after 10 pages. If not, well I have all those other lovely suggestions to try.
This made me realize that I want to have all those suggestions in one list rather than scattered across 40 comments on two blog entries. It also occurs to me that Link is probably not the only 11 year old boy in need of interesting books. I’m grouping the books according to rough categories to better target potential interests. The categories are very rough. Many of these books have elements of several categories. The list is heavy on Science Fiction and Fantasy, which is good for Link since that’s where his interests lie. First I’m going to get him to love reading. Then I’ll try to get him to broaden his interests. I’m providing links to amazon.com so that people can look up more information about the books. If you find a broken link let me know.
Outdoors/historical adventure
My Side of the Mountain
The Swiss Family Robinson
The Great Brain
The Invention of Hugo Cabret
Rascal
Mystery
Hardy Boys books
Action adventure
Geronimo Stilton
Fantasy/Science Fiction
The Time Warp Trio
Freddy Pig
Warriors: Into the Wild
The Time Spies series
Star Wars
The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet
The Indian in the Cupboard
The Castle in the Attic
Redwall
The Hobbitt
The Chronicles of Narnia
Catseye
Space Family Stone
The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
The Belgariad
Dragonriders of Pern
Humorous
Supernatural Rubber Chicken
Danny Dunn books
Other Resources
Book It
Favorite Books for Fifth Graders
Guys Read
Teacher Book Wizard
Wow. It took a lot longer to put that together than I expected. I’m going to bed now. If you made a suggestion and I missed putting it in the list, feel free to leave it in a comment below. Perhaps I’ll update the list again.
Tom Sawyer?
Penrod (by Booth Tarkington)
I’d have actually pitched The Belgariad at a slightly older age. Similarly for Pern (though if Dragonriders is the first landing, dragon discovery book then that’s a good one as a standalone) and maybe Star Wars. Big series/world stuff might be daunting if you’re not already hooked on reading.
Two books that I can heartily recommend which I read at about the same age:
Trillians – Nicolas Fisk
Spaceship Medic – Harry Harrison
Both are relatively slim books and have the advantage of not being parts of big series.
Reading is ace, and I really should make more time for it than I do.
Following your link to _My Side of the Mountain_ with thoughts of picking up a copy to reminisce over, I found that two more have been published since I was a kid! Now I’m left with a dilemma: do I ignore them and preserve my fond memories of the first, or read them and (according to the reviews) value completeness over quality? 🙂
Frankly, any Terry Pratchett should be good. I’d suggest starting at the beginning with The Color Of Magic and reading them in order. I’d also recommend Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, or the Robert Heinlein juveniles such as R is for Rocket, Podkayne of Mars, and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel. Perhaps Pebble in the Sky, too.
The Belgariad, I think, is fine for that age; it’s the Malloreon where it gets a bit older. And of course Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress are even more so, and then the Elenium and the Tamuli just get weird (weird I say!).
But the Belgariad is basically just the perfect “young farmer boy comes into his destiny, lead by a old wizard and surrounded by his friends etc etc” story. Perfect for a kid that age.
And the Pern books, some are fine, perhaps. But you REALLY want to read them first before giving them to a kid. Some of them have some really nasty things and nasty people in them. I’d say those are for older kids, talking friendly naive dragons notwithstanding.. There’s quite a bit of rape and murder and other such stuff mentioned throughout the series.
I’ll second the Harry Harrison rec, though. It’s never too early to start making anyone a fan of Harry Harrison.
For an 11-year-old? The first Discworld books should do, but they grow up a bit as they go on.
And Good Omens might be okay, but a whole lot of it will go way over a kid’s head.
Uh, Have Spacesuit Will Travel is AWESOME, I’ll agree on that one.
Another comment left above reminded me; There’s a series of Discworld books, the Tiffany Aching series, starting with ‘The Wee Free Men’, which is aimed at younger readers, like the Maurice book.. this series stars the young witch Tiffany, but more importantly, it stars the Nac Mac Feegle, who are pictsies, small blue very strong, very violent men, well, pictsies, about 12 inches high, who drink and otherwise act like hooligans but always do the right thing in the end. Uh, they’re very much the sort of thing to interest young boys; they interest me very much and I’m totally still a little boy really.
Why not? I get the impression Link is plenty bright. Our eldest daughter, codenamed Goose, started on Discworld at 12, and I think she’s read all of them over the past year or so.
“Nae King, nae Queen, nae Laird — we’ll not be fooled again!”
I LOVED my side of the mountain. It was amazing… Several of George’s books are very good…
Also, I personally suggest “Where the Red Fern Grows”…
Aye!
I’d add the “Rolling Stones”, “Farmer in the Sky” and “Red Planet” to the Heinlein list. I also suggest all the Oz books.
I thought some of these were for an older audience myself. But the only experience I have with boys that age is my 12 year nephew and everyone is different. I remember the Dragons of Pern best (reread them all the time) and I agree they tend to have a some sex and violence in them. The only ones I think would be appropriate would be the Harper Hall Trilogy. They are aimed more at teenagers. My nephew did let me borrow some of his books which are really good and made for that age group. Dragonrider by Cornelia Funke, and I really liked Septimus Heap:Magyk by Angie Sage. That is the first book in a series and I can’t wait to read the others.
I can’t believe no one’s brought up Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles yet. I loved those books even more than Narnia. They’re still my favorite series ever. Titles:
The Book of Three
The Black Cauldron
The Castle of Llyr
Taran Wanderer
The High King
The Foundling (a set of short stories)
Good point, I loved those when I was 10/11 (Still do!)
Thank you so much for compiling this list. I had planned to because I have my own 11-year-old reluctant reader, but you saved me some time! He waded through Harry Potter way before he was ready (because his older brothers had read them) but I would love to increase his fluency and enjoyment. I know to do this I must find books *below* his instructional reading level so they are not such drudgery. He did just find a book in the My America Series (I think that’s what it is) that he is enjoying. They are historical fiction (one of MY favorite things).
The Hardy Boys are popular with the boys in our family (including Dad). Encyclopedia Brown and The Great Brain books are also good. I can’t wait to hear which of these books interest Link.
As I was recently reminded, _Where the Red Fern Grows_ has some quite gruesome scenes and a very tragic ending.
I read it in class in 5th grade, in conjunction with _Rascal_ — providing both sides of the raccoon-hunting perspective, I guess.
Aretmis Fowl!
Hi.
I can’t believe no one recommended Artemis Fowl.
Fairies (with high tech), boy (evil) genius, loyal bodyguard, puns. Some girls, but no “icky” stuff.
In short – the first book starts with Artemis Fowl, an 11 year old genius, and heir to the Fowl criminal family. He’s trying to prop up the failing family fortune by stealing from the fairies, while his mother insists on waiting for his years absent father to come back.
If you’re worried about the morality of a thief, I don’t think you should be. He does the right thing at the end of each book, and moves on the side of the angels (ala Robin Hood) by the end of book three. You can just look at it before you give it to Link.
And of course there’s Mulch Diggums, dwarf – a lovable character which passes gas, uses hair, spit, and possibly other bodily fluids to “help” Artemis. I think that should really appeal to 11 year old boys.
Second the recommendation on the Mac Nae Figle, and all the kid directed Terry Pratchett (Maurice, Johnny and the Bomb, Johnny and the Dead, Johnny and something from space). Not so sure about the adult Terry Pratchett.
Hope you manage to get Link hoked on reading.
Yours,
Uri David
PS
Are you familiar with James Herriot? It might be too old for him, but it is a lot of short stories about a vet’s life in England.
That list is fabulous! *favorites*
Harry Harrison’s “Stainless Steel Rat” books; marvellous stuff.
I thought E.E.Doc Smith’s “Lensman” books were good for a laugh too, although he does rather use up all the superlatives by about the 4th volume and resorts to things being “indescribable”
Later on, Lord of the Rings. But that’s only an 11-y-o book for 11-y-o’s with a serious reading habit – has Kiki read it?. I think I was about 11 when I read it for the first time, since then over the years I’ve read it probably about 5 or 6 times in total.
Including Dad AND Brother! 😀
I forgot to mention the Dealing With Dragons books. (Well, technically they’re called The Enchanted Forest Chronicles.) Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons, and Talking to Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede. I LOVED those at about that age.
Fantasy
My brain is drizzling out of my ears.
Susan Cooper’s the Dark is Rising series. The story starts out in Cornwall with the three siblings and their Great-Uncle Merry (Merriman) and ends with Bran Pendragon triumphant. And that glosses over all of the really good stuff in the middle with Will Stanton and the Signs.
heh, totally seconded. Those books are made of win. Must go find them again.
Oh, yes, absolutely adored them! Thanks for reminding me!
belatedly, but thankfully
thank you for your search and the list that came of it.
Turns out LightningBoy has been reading the same 3-6 World of Warcraft books over and over…. and just had a fit over reading a real book. Too bad , no more cheating for him!
We’ve printed out your list and are thankful for it.
He opted for his Star Wars book based on the recent movie for now….but, after that we will be picking out books.
so, again. thank you.
Re: belatedly, but thankfully
You’re welcome!
Oh my goodness, you MUST see if the rest of the Mushroom Planet books are still available somewhere – apparently the publisher-of-very-little-brain has only been reprinting the first two of a five-book series, alas, but I think you’re more of a library person anyway. The first one is great, of course, but I have very fond memories of all of them, and I think the last one is what turned me on to Wales.
I’d also suggest – and I say this without having read the comments – Asimov’s Lucky Starr series (written for the Scouts’ Boy’s Life magazine, if I remember correctly), Heinlein’s juvies in general, and Susan Cooper’s ‘The Dark Is Rising’. In fact, I think Will’s around fifth-grade age at his first appearance, but ‘Over Sea Under Stone’ is actually the first book.
Danny Dunn On The Ocean Floor is the first book I ever remember getting so enthralled in that I lost all track of time, so I heartily recommend Danny Dunn. I also loved Freddy the Pig books.
There’s “The Mad Scientists’ Club” by Bertrand R. Brinley if you like Danny Dunn.
Heinlein is good. It’s worth knowing that Heinlein wrote two kinds of books. He started out writing boy’s adventures and later changed to writing novels for adults. He’s almost two completely different authors. “Have Space Suit, Will Travel” is a good book, written with a fifth grader in mind, often recommended. “To Sail Beyond The Sunset”, on the other hand, is targeted at a completely different audience and should probably be saved for later.
No one has mentioned Daniel Pinkwater. I was a big fan of his. I can recommend “The Hoboken Chicken Emergency” and “Lizard Music”. Perhaps they get a bit too off-the-wall for some people, but I liked them.
William Sleator is great and “The Boy Who Reversed Himself” is one of my all-time favorites. The main characters end up in a four-dimensional universe. I’ve been fascinated with hypercubes ever since. Sleator’s books always leave you thinking.
Finally, I have to put in a huge plug for Diane Duane’s “So You Want To Be A Wizard” series. Sooo good! I should have listed this one first.
I was just thinking, its a rather huge list of things that people have been recommending, but there’s a reason for it. We are recommending things we love. I don’t read a lot because I enjoy the mechanics of translating symbols into words in my head. I read because I have discovered fantastic adventures in books in the past and found that I can’t get enough. Now I read voraciously, just looking for the next novel that will truly transport me. All of us out here shouting out book titles are doing so because these are ones we’ve fallen in love with (or know people who have). The bad news is everyone has their own idea of what they love and even if everyone else loves a certain book, it may still eave you cold. The good news is there is a huge variety of material out there (Captain Underpants to War and Peace), and you just have to keep trying until you find the book that was meant for you. And that’s how it will be, too – you will be reading a book and you will think, “Oh wow! How did the author know? How did I get to be so lucky that this author, this person who doesn’t know me, wrote something meant just for me, something that resonates so stongly, a story with everything I always wanted? I think I’ll read this, ah, six more times.” And then you’ll be hooked, hunting for more good books and writing huge lists of your favorite books in other people’s blogs. If you haven’t walked around bleary-eyed one day because you were up all night reading, you just haven’t found YOUR book yet.
I read big books because I want more. I like manga just fine (speaking of, I highly recommend Nausicaa by Miyazaki) but I hanker for the depth and richness of a huge book (mmmm, Tad Williams). If you think “reading for fun” is like eating your vegetables, you are doing it wrong! Reading comic books is like eating a chocolate cupcake. Hey, good, no doubt. But if you go to Costco and you know where to look, you can find the 18″ extra-moist, double frosted German chocolate layer cakes – and it’s all yours! Mwa-ha-ha! Now THAT’s reading for fun! All we can do is shake heads at the poor people who think reading means vegetable, and try to get them to see what they are missing.
— Louis Thomas