The Great Quarterback Switch by Matt Christopher

I know, I know, not exactly Oliver Twist, but boys go crazy for these slightly crude yet funny illustrated novels. I like them because they have a lot of adventure and they’re exciting.ģ: Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey All of them have monsters with three children going on a quest to defeat them. Sam: I definitely learned a lot of history! Maybe too much!Ī boy does battle with dragons and other mythological creatures in over 60 books. A great way for your reader to actually learn some history.

There are almost 50 of these books that tell fun tales of Jack and Annie’s adventures through time to different places around the world. Books My Boys Loveġ: Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne

Which I thought was a good idea at the time, but now they both want jobs at The New York Review of Books after they graduate from grade school. Please note that along with the book selections, I’ve also included a little commentary from my sons. Yep, there’s a whole world out there besides “ Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” In general, the librarian told me, most boys gravitate toward fantasy, humor, Greek mythology (especially books with illustrations of the mythical creatures), illustrated dragon books, Guinness World Records and non-fiction stories about military vehicles and ships. (Key phrase in that sentence: “sit down.”) With the help of our elementary school librarian, I’ve put together a list of books that boys (and more than a few girls I know) seem to love. The good news is that no matter which camp your boys fall into-book worm or book, um, whatever the opposite of worm is-there’s a plethora of stories out there that they’ll be happy to sit down and enjoy. In that way, he’s probably more like the typical boy reader the researchers are referring to, but we’ve still been able to find quite a few books that he just adores. I know, I have it easy with him.īut then there’s Jack, my 8-year-old son, who’s more of a challenge because he needs to have his interest really piqued by a book in order to make a commitment to it. At least they do in my house where my 10-year-old son Sam will spend twenty minutes perusing the fine print on a bag of potato chips just because he “can’t wait to see how it ends.” Sam has always been a voracious reader and even blew through the entire Harry Potter collection in less than a month last summer. Want to curl up with a good book and read, that is.

(Whoa- how’d you all get those torches lit so quickly? At least give me a running start!) But what I mean by that rather sweeping generalization is that, with so many studies and articles showing that boys lag behind girls in literacy, one could easily assume that the last thing any boy wants to do is curl up with a good book and read.Įxcept, they do. Everyone knows that boys don’t like books.

The Great Quarterback Switch by Matt Christopher