For the past few summers, I’ve given my son a list of 8-10 books and if he reads them, he gets $100. He already is an advanced reader but I think he’d reread favorites in one genre (like Percy Jackson or the Tapestry series) if I didn’t encourage him. Please suggest books that were meaningful to you at that age (for an idea, some books this year were The Book Thief, Johnny Tremain, To Kill a Mockingbird, Ender’s Game, The Boys In the Boat). They don’t have to be classics but should be well written and big points for diverse points of view and cultures.
by SorchaCrone
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Pendragon series by DJ MacHale
Rangers apprentice series by John Flanagan
Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini
The Heir Chronicles by Cinda Williams Chima
I’ve read all of these series several times and still enjoy rereading them now (29F)
I remember around that age I loved these books:
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
1984 by George Orwell
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Watership Down,
Call of the wild,
Of Mice and Men,
The outsiders by Hinton,
Treasure Island,
The things they carried,
The once and future king,
Roadside Picnic by Strugatsky
Solito,
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah,
Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin,
The Ghost Map
Reading should be done for the sheer joy. When you pay someone it makes it seem like a job. Maybe books could be a reward for doing chores that he doesn’t want to do? He gets a gift card for a bookstore online?
The City of Ember, Maze Runner, Gone
That’s the age I was when I started Discworld. My first was Pyramids although Guards! Guards! and Wyrd Sisters also come to mind as good places to start.
Some of these have very mature things so I’d recommend pre-screening them since you know your son best!!
“The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas
“The Giver” by Lois Lowry
“The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian” by Sherman Alexie
“The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini
“The House on Mango Street” by Sandra Cisneros
“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
Any books by Robert Louis Stevenson
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
Wayward Children series by Seanan McGuire