I'm getting really stuck on suggestions for my 6th grader /12 yo son. He used to be such an avid reader and he's just losing interest. He's like dancing around at night instead of getting into bed and reading. I almost want to entice him with books for adults so he feels a little more mature. Maybe project Hail Mary? He loved Alex Rider, Spy School. What about like old school Tom Clancy? IDK, i'm at a loss for him.
by tgbarbie
17 Comments
What books has he stated are boring in his opinion?
He might like something like Guiness Book of World records.
Maybe the murderbot diaries by Martha wells.
As an alternative, I wonder if he needs to move his body before bed to get tired, maybe switching to audiobooks that he can listen to while doing some stretching/ body weight exercises to calm his body down would help
Edit: hitchhikers guide to the galaxy may also be interesting to him
The hobbit/Lord of the Rings?
He might be old enough for Lois Bujold’s Vorkosigan saga, especially if you’re letting him read the Hunger Games. For a kid, I suggest starting with The Warrior’s Apprentice, not Shards of Honor.
Jules Verne.
I loved Project Hail Mary, and it should be appropriate for a 12yo without being boring. Maybe also The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Heinlein? Terms of Enlistment (Marko Kloos, military sci-fi) was good, but I don’t recall any details re: subject matter. Quarter Share (Nathan Lowell) is also pretty good.
What about Dan Gutman or Gary D. Schmidt?
Has he tried the Redwall Series? Mice with swords and rabbits and squirrels with bows and badgers with hammers face off in wars against foxes and snakes and stoats and vermin.
Artemis Fowl series is about a boy wonder who kidnaps a faerie to steal faerie gold and technology.
Percy Jackson is about a boy who learns he’s a demi-god and the half son of Poseiden who goes on adventures that encounter many of the old Greek myths.
Dungeon Crawler Carl should be perfect.
Sounds like he’s on the edge of adolescence. Exploring topics he’s never been interested in before (like dancing) After all, this is the age people discover who they are. And a challenging period for parents. Tighten the reigns, and the begin to buck wildly. Release the, and they run headlong into danger.
In your place, I’d take him to a used book store and let him explore a bit.
Try the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan
Some SF with a good mix of action and intellectual ideas might be right. The Mote in God’s Eye is a good example, Startide Rising is another.
Another direction is historical fiction. Around that age my son loved Bernard Cornwell’s work, like The Last Kingdom set in Saxon England or Sharp’s Rifles set in the Napoleonic Wars. If he likes the sea, Horatio Hornblower is great too.
Dungeon Crawler Carl. It sounds like a YA book, but it most assuredly is not. It’s definitely got a bit of a Hunger Games vibe to it, but is very much its own thing. It is the single most creative thing I’ve read in decades. Oh, and it’s legitimately hilarious. But it’s for a mature audience. Each book gets darker. There are highly crass jokes and language and death and gore. So decide how you feel about that for your child, but I was reading Stephen King by that age (if you visit his sub you’ll find most of us started on him young) and think if they can read and understand it, they can handle it.
While I am a *reader* and strongly encourage you to have him *read* the books because I’m a firm believer that it’s important people be highly literate and *actual reading* achieves that… the audiobook performance for the series is a transcendent experience. It could be a fun incentive for him? Finish the book and then he gets to listen to it? Or maybe he can read and listen simultaneously? They’re like non-visual movies—so exceedingly well done.
Hi! HS Librarian here! You have a few good rec’s already, so here are some more:
Project Hail Mary is a great one! Great protagonist, fun story, nothing much objectionable, and its got a movie coming out next year that looks pretty good too!
Also from Andy Weir, The Martian is fantastic! Fun science, lone survivor story with a harrowing rescue attempt – also the movie is awesome!
If you are ok with some violence (you mentioned Hunger Games, so I am thinking this is appropriate as well) Red Rising by Pierce Brown is kinda like Hunger Games in space – but more. The first part of the book is a bit on the dull side, but the light romance really sets up the driving motive for our MC, Darrow. Multi book series that is FANTASTIC!
Another series that catches a lot of my HS boys is Scythe by Neal Shusterman. Also a series, but can easily stand alone. Really fun book, really interesting premise as well!
The Inheritance Games is a great middle grades/early HS read as well, mystery and adventure.
I see a lot of boys around this age slow down in their reading, to help them come back to novels and the like, I often redirect them to graphic novels to recapture the joy of reading. If he is a Fortnite gamer, series like Attack On Titan, Alice in Borderlands, FullMetal Alchemist, Jujutsu Kaisen, or Demon Slayer might rekindle the love of reading. They are manga, so violence and all is par for the course, but it is cartoonish and over the top.
Good luck!
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, so long as you don’t mind him reading books which take a decidedly negative view of organized religion.
They’re aimed at 12-14 year old readers, but deal with a variety of much more mature topics. They’re whimsical, adventurous, and fantastical, but strongly and maturely written and ask serious questions of the reader.
Red Rising series !