Books for Boys
Most avid readers have experienced that one book that kick-started their love of reading. For me, it was having my mom and dad read Inkheart aloud to my siblings and I. From there, I dove into Nancy Drew and The Boxcar Children (I am not proud). I read The Sisters Grimm and Gail Carson Levine. By the age of nine or ten, I was off. My sisters had similar experiences; you struggle for a while, then something clicks, and suddenly there just aren’t enough books lying around.
Perhaps you’ve been blessed with a son/brother/sad-nephew-living-in-the-cupboard-under-the-stairs/charge who loved reading from a young age. More likely, they've had to experience the right book to get them really excited about reading. It’s pretty typical of both boys and girls, but getting a little boy to sit down and pick up a book can be challenging, to say the least. This is why it’s absolutely silly to hand an 8-year-old The Wizard of Oz and The Phantom Tollbooth and then get frustrated when they don’t seem interested in reading. You don’t give a kid The Old Man and the Sea and expect them to get excited; kids don’t want to read that. I don’t want to read that. The point is, kids have to have fun reading before they can dive into the deeper stuff. Example: When our little brother was about eight, reading was a chore. He just never got into The Magic Treehouse books like we did, so we bought him the The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger. And he loved it. One day he couldn’t find the book, so I handed him Gregor the Overlander to read in the meantime. He never went back to Angleberger, after that. By the time he’d finished the Underland Chronicles, he was an avid reader. Now he’s ten and he’s reading The Mysterious Benedict Society and Harry Potter.
(Update: he's 13 now, and has blown through the entirety of the Lord of the Rings series, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, the Inheritance Cycle, Ender's Shadow, and he's read Ender's Game three times.) We know it can be tough to come up with books that will get a little boy excited about reading. But the past few years, we’ve also had a lot of experience scrounging for new material for our brother and his friends. Which is why (drum roll) we have created a list of the top books we think will make little boys readers for life! The titles with links lead to detailed reviews and summaries of the novels. ~ 6+
The BFG by Roald Dahl
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
Wayside School series by Louis Sachar
Magic Treehouse series by Mary Pope Osborne
Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman
~ 8+
The Anybodies series by N.E. Bode
Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman
The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forrester
The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
The Borrowers by Mary Norton
~ 10+
How to Train Your Dragon series by Cressida Cowell
Leepike Ridge by N.D. Wilson
100 Cupboards series by N.D. Wilson
Outlaws of Time series by N.D. Wilson
Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke
The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke
Wings of Fire series by Tui T. Sutherland
The League of Princes series by Christopher Healy
Holes by Louis Sachar
Wonder by R.J. Palacio
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Old Yeller by Fred Gipson
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls
The Wizards of Once by Cressida Cowell
~ 11+
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Mysterious Benedict Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart
The Secret Keepers by Trenton Lee Stewart
Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
Ghost Knight by Cornelia Funke
~ 13+
Ashtown Burials series by N.D. Wilson
Boys of Blur by N.D. Wilson
The Giver Quartet by Lois Lowry
Inkworld Trilogy by Cornelia Funke
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini
Peak by Roland Smith
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
~ 14+
The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins
Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card
Ender's Shadow series by Orson Scott Card
The Maze Runner series by James Dashner
~ 16+
Timeline by Michael Crichton
Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton
Dune by Frank Herbert
The Martian by Andy Weir
As a reminder: we’re serious about the “plus” in the age categories. I would hand Fortunately, the Milk to a 13-year-old. I would give Gregor the Overlander or The Thief Lord to a 16-year-old. We seriously recommend these books for boys AND girls!