Posted on 12/07/2005 7:03:07 AM PST by FlatLandBeer
One of my favorite books was Little Britches by Ralph Moody. It's the stylized biography of a young boy growing up in Colorado Springs area at the end of the cowboy era. He spends time working a number of odd jobs and is befriended by a ranch hand named Hi. Great, great story. I didn't even realize it was a whole series of books until 2 months ago when my kids got the series and started reading them. I recently read a couple of the other books.
That said, Little House on the Prairie books are also appropriate for boys. (I have a first edition copy in my library)
GA Henty stories are incredible.
Carry on Mr. Bowditch, a bio of pioneering sea captain Nathaniel Bowditch. He developed navigation techniques that are still in use today.
Johnny Tremain
Hardy Boys
The Boy Scout Field Guide
In no particular order:
Mark Twain's Mississippi River books
Just about anything by Jack London
The Jungle book (Kipling)
Robert Heinlein's more youth oriented books (Red Planet, Podkayne of Mars, Starship Troopers, ...)
There's a genre of military "I was there" books ... memoirs of troops from Viet Nam, Korea, WWII. They're not all well written, but I think they're thoroughly appropriate for teenage boys (which you almost have).
I get a good deal of oaks from this catalog: A Common reader
Look at bill Bennett's recommended reading list here..Bill's Book The Well Educated Child
My son is 7, and he is a reluctant reader.. he likes to read The Magic Tree House series, the Magic School Bus chapter books, The Dragons of Loon, The Tales of Narnia, The Spiderwick ,Bioncle comic books, and the instructions on how to build huge rockets.
ooo! That looks like a much have. Thank you.
Holy cow! Thanks for posting that pic...brings back some very happy memories that I'd forgotten.
My son read "Where The Red Fern Grows" over and over.
And if you don't have it; buy a good copy of "The Velveteen Rabbit". Beautiful growing up story but I've never quite made it through the entire book without breaking down.
In addition I couldn't tear my son away from anything written by Richard Halliburton or Doc Savage.
Also...the R.L. Stine, Goosebump series is boy oriented too.
I forgot about Goosebumps!
Bumping!
Click that website for your sons. They will love it.
I didn't specify, I meant this one: http://www.pilkey.com/index.php
"Freddy the Leaf" by Leo Buscaglia is a wonderful book about death and resurrection told through the life of a leaf/nature.
I always have a copy for children AND adults when someone loses a loved one. My son's friend died when they were 8 and this book was a literal God-send.
Also Robert Louis Stevenson - Kidnapped, Treasure Island, The Black Arrow.
Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories are a must - start with the "Hound of the Baskervilles" and then go back to the Adventures. But also look at Doyles OTHER stories - the ones that are less well known. The White Company and Sir Nigel are 14th century knights and derring-do stories - very exciting and very English. He also wrote Rodney Stone about the Regency period and bareknuckle boxing, and Brigadier Gerard about the Napoleonic Wars.
Speaking of which, the C.S. Forester books, not only the Horatio Hornblower stories but also Rifleman Dodd are good for boys. I don't think the Patrick O'Brien (Master and Commander) books are good for the 9-12 range because they contain a lot of adult themes unsuitable for kids (remember what Churchill said about "rum, buggery, and the lash"?)
An excellent series of books for boys was written by Arthur Ransome. The Swallows and Amazons books may be a bit tame, depending on how adventurous your boys are, but The Big Six and Great Northern? as well as Peter Duck are more exciting.
I don't know if you can still get them in this country, but Philip Turner, an ex Royal Navy man who became an Anglican rector in the north of England, wrote a whole series of boys adventure books - beginning with Colonel Sheperton's Clock and continuing through War on the Darnel and numerous other titles. He wrote about this little town in remote northern England, both in the 20th century and retrospectively in the early 19th. All good books with lots of excitement.
William Mayne is another good English author. Earthfasts is sort of a ghost story, he also wrote slice of English county town life books like Turner's - A Swarm in May is one.
Great series of books written by another Englishman, Leon Garfield, about gritty life in London in the 18th century. Smith is the only one I can think of right offhand, but it's an exciting book about a little street urchin who finds himself involved in political skullduggery and murder. Some real historical figures make an appearance, including the painter William Hogarth and the novelist Henry Fielding's less famous brother, Sir John Fielding the Blind Beak of Bow Street. ("Beak" is old slang for a judge. He was a committing magistrate in the old criminal court in Bow Street, and he was in fact blind from birth. He used a switch to get around, conducted criminal investigations with the help of an assistant, and was reputed to know over 2,000 criminals by their voices.)
That oughta hold you for awhile.
And yes, I am an Anglophile. The British on the whole write much better children's books than Americans.
I'm not sure how old he is, but I'd put these on his reading list.
Kidnapped
Swiss Family Robinson
David Copperfield
Most anything about the Shakleton expedition, but Endurance comes to mind.
Treasure Island
Tarzan of the Apes
The Bible
Guadalcanal Diary
A biography of Robert E Lee
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Hardy Boy's Series
Captains Courageous
Moby Dick
Try to get the real thing, not disneyfied watered down versions or glorified Cliff's Notes.
Mix fact and fiction, but these should get him started.
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Left Behind series for kids...later on the Left Behind series for adults
The collected works of Arthur C. Clarke; Isaac Asimov; Ray Bradbury & Alasitair MacLean
When growing up I enjoyed the LANDMARK BOOKS by Random House is a series of books that cover prominent people and interesting time periods in our history. This collection consists of 122 titles published by Random House between 1950 and 1970. See, http://www154.pair.com/redgroup/Landmarks.htm. They are still available on Amazon and ebay.
Captains Courageous is a good pick though. Nobody has mentioned Kipling's pair of English history/fantasy books, Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Faeries. They have quite a bit of adventure in them (Norman and Saxon knights, Roman centurions, etc.) once you get going.
Does he like sports? The Chip Hilton series has been updated and I recall them being very enjoyable.
Moby Dick is fine. He can get on that right after he finishes War and Peace.
:))
;)
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