If gives me a personal delight to take advantage of the knowledge of other people and this is a great example. At Life the Universe and Everything writing symposium in 2011 the panel of this name discussed what kids have liked to read as observed by librarians. Notes from discussion were added. So this might influence what books to read to your kids during reading hour. Just some ideas. This was forward to me from a friend who attended the panel. I don’t know who presented it.
High-Low Reading for Boys (Written about middle school/H.S. but written at 4th grade level)
Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Strange Case of Origami Yoda
Shredderman
Skeleton Creek
Spiderwick Chronicles
Invention of Hugo Cabret
Adventure Books: (Real life stories—like the kid who went to scout camp and ended up in survival mode).
Hatchet
My Side of the Mountain
Gordon Korman Series
- Dive
- On the Run
- Kidnapped
- Island
Superheroes:
Hero by Mike Lupica
The ExtraOrdinary Adfentures of Ordinary Boy (series)
Quantum Prophecy Series
Poserless
Gthe Girl Who Could Fly
Magical Realism: (Historical or Real life setting with a small magic twist)
Seven Wonders fo Sassafras Springs—a kid tries to find 7 wonders in his hick town, and discovers little bits of magic and wonder (in only one example, a man in town builds a tiny model, and anything he makes happen in the model occurs in town).
Seer of Shadows
Thunder Cave
Water Seeker
Nineth Ward
Robots and Cool Technology: (Boys love this, and we only have 2 examples…hint, hint. I’m glad that this is where I’m writing already, a ship of astounding technology BM)
Story: Infinity Code by E.L. Young (boy puts together a team to work technical wonders)
Ricky Ricotta Series by Dave Pilkey (Mouse with a giant robot.)
DON’T USE CUTESY ROBOTS
Monsters and Scary Books:
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
Stone Child
Witch’s Sister
Dead Boys
Mythology, Greek and Other: (Vampires, Zombies and Dragons have been overdone. These aren’t being purchased now like the rest.)
Gods of Manhattan
Chronus Chronicles
Odysseus in the Serpent Maze
The Reluctant God
She shared a list of creatures from the Fantasy Encyclopedia that could be used: Gargoyles Geni
Griffon Goblin
Hypocampus Trolls
Leprechauns Pooka
Hobgoblins Kobolds
Brownies Domovoy
Bogart Elementals
Nymph Dryad
Fawn Satyr (Mr. Tumnus, made this interesting).
Centaur (boys love this) Leshies
Bunyip Pegasus
Unicorn Wyvern
Shamarack Sphynx
Cyclops Gollum
Mummy Doppleganger
Windigo (Native American). Book called Wabi.
After looking at this list, Bob thinks that she pulled a list of creatures, but some of them may not make as good of stories as she might think. The principle is the same: We have an incredible list of creatures. Lots that we can use. So much that we could do with it.
A couple of fun examples for girls: Mother/Daughter Book Club, a book by Sharon Draper about a girl with cerebral palsy who can’t talk, and as such is in a classroom where they teach the alphabet for years, but she’s genius. TRAPPED. What an idea!
Notes: Girls will read about Boy protagonists, but boys really avoid girl protagonists. Paired prots are OK for boys (Fablehaven siblings).
She reported that a book called Clockwork Three sold out in three weeks. I wonder why.
Looking at this list I see that kids love adventure. Even the titles sound great. Seek these books at your favorite library or borrow from a friend. With the advancement of eBooks on line you should be able to go up on line and look for the following type of key worlds: The point is to just put in a variety of how you type in your search to get multiple results.
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