Books for Boys Who Don't Love to Read

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    (Full Text)

books for boys who don’t love to read


** Indicates additional titles by the author.

junior picturebooks

Allard, Harry**
The Stupids step out

Arnold, Ted
parts

Barton, Byron**
airport

big machines
bones, bones, dinosaur bones

Carrick, Carol**
Patrick's dinosaurs

Coy, John
Night driving

DiTerlizzi, Tony
Jimmy Zangwow's out-of-this-world, moon pie adventure

Krauss, Ruth
The carrot seed

Steig, William**
sylvester and the magic pebble
Dr. desoto

Wick, Walter**
i spy books

Willems, Mo
Don't let the pigeon drive the bus!
A young pigeon tries everything he can to persuade someone to let him drive the bus.

junior easy books

Brown, Jeff
flat stanley

Eastman, P. D.                         JE-1R
Go, dog, go

O'Connor, Jane
Eek! stories to make you shriek

Lobel, Arnold**
frog and toad books

Osbourne, Mary Pope**
magic treehouse series

Pilkey, Dav**
Kat Kong
Dogzilla


Rylant, Cynthia**
Henry and Mudge

Schwartz, Alvin
IN A DARK, DARK ROOM; AND OTHER SCARY STORIES

Sharmat, Marjorie **
Nate the great

Weston, Martha
Space guys!

Junior fiction

Arter, Jim
Gruel and unusual punishment
Undaunted by his second stint in the seventh-grade, Arnold continues to specialize in annoying and anti-social behavior but becomes uncomfortably aware that the teacher he calls Apeface has taken a special interest in his "case."

Banks, Lynne Reid**
Harry the poisonous centipede: a story to make you squirm
When their adventures lead them to explore the biggest and scariest villain of all, Harry and George realize that they are not brave, only reckless and foolish.

Base, Graeme
The discovery of dragons










Catling, Patrick
The Chocolate touch
A boy acquires a magical gift that turns everything his lips touch into chocolate.

Colfer, Eoin                              YA Fiction
Artemis Fowl
When a twelve-year-old evil genius tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy and demanding a ransom in gold, the fairies fight back with magic, technology, and a particularly nasty troll.

Collins, Suzanne
Gregor the Overlander
When eleven-year-old Gregor and his two-year-old sister are pulled into a strange underground world, they trigger an epic battle involving men, bats, rats, cockroaches, and spiders while on a quest foretold by ancient prophecy.

Dahl, Roald**
James and the Giant Peach
Charlie and the Chocolate FActory


Erickson, John **
The original adventures of Hank the Cowdog Series
Hank the Cowdog  is framed for the murder of a chicken and becomes an outlaw with the coyotes.

Gantos, Jack
Joey Pigza swallowed the key
To the constant disappointment of his mother and his teachers, Joey has trouble paying attention or controlling his mood swings when his prescription meds wear off and he starts getting worked up and acting wired.

George, Jean Craighead**
My side of the mountain
A young boy relates his adventures during the year he spends living alone in the Catskill Mountains including his struggle for survival, his dependence on nature, his animal friends, and his ultimate realization that he needs human companionship.

Griffiths, Andy                        J Paperback
The day my butt went psycho!

Halam, Ann
Dr.
Franklin
's island
When their plane crashes over the Pacific Ocean, three science students are left stranded on a tropical island and then imprisoned by a doctor who is performing horrifying experiments on humans involving the transfer of animal genes.

Horowitz, Anthony
Stormbreaker
After the death of the uncle who had been his guardian, fourteen-year-old Alex Rider is coerced to continue his uncle's dangerous work for Britain's intelligence agency, MI6.

Howe, Deborah**
Bunnicula: a rabbit tale of mystery
Though scoffed at by Harold the dog, Chester the cat tries to warn his human family that their foundling baby bunny must be a vampire.

Mikaelsen, Ben                        YA Fiction
Touching Spirit Bear
After his anger erupts into violence, Cole, in order to avoid going to prison, agrees to participate in a sentencing  alternative based on the native American Circle Justice, and he is sent to a remote Alaskan Island where an encounter with a  huge Spirit Bear changes his life.

Nimmo, Jenny**
Midnight for Charlie Bone
Charlie Bone's life with his widowed mother and two grandmothers undergoes a dramatic change when he discovers that he can hear people in photographs talking.

Oppel, Kenneth**
Silverwing
When a newborn bat named Shade but sometimes called "Runt" becomes separated from his colony during migration, he grows in ways that prepare him for even greater journeys.
 
Pauslen, Gary**                       YA Fiction
hatchet
After a plane crash, thirteen-year-old Brian spends fifty-four days in the wilderness, learning to survive with only the aid of a hatchet given him by his mother, and learning also to survive his parents' divorce.

Peck, Richard**
A long way from Chicago
A boy recounts his annual summer trips to rural Illinois with his sister during the Great Depression to visit their larger-than-life grandmother.

Pilkey, Dav**
captain underpants series

Rowling, J.K.**
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone





Sachar, Louis                          YA Fiction               
Holes
As further evidence of his family's bad fortune which they attribute to a curse on a distant relative, Stanley Yelnats is sent to a hellish correctional camp in the Texas desert where he finds his first real friend, a treasure, and a new sense of himself.

Scieszka, Jon**
The Stinky Cheese Man and other fairly stupid tales
time warp trio series

Shan, Darren**
Cirque du Freak Series
Two boys who are best friends visit an illegal freak show, where an encounter with a vampire and a deadly spider forces them to make life-changing choices.

Snickett, Lemony**
the bad beginning: a series of unfortunate events
After the sudden death of their parents, the three Baudelaire children must depend on each other and their wits when it turns out that the distant relative who is appointed their guardian is determined to use any means necessary to get their fortune.

Spinelli, Jerry**                        YA Fiction
Maniac Magee
After his parents die, Jeffrey Lionel Magee's life becomes legendary, as he accomplishes athletic and other feats which awe his contemporaries.

Taylor, Theodore**
the cay
When the freighter on which they are traveling is torpedoed by a German submarine during World War II, an adolescent white boy, blinded by a blow on the head, and an old black man are stranded on a tiny Caribbean island where the boy acquires a new kind of vision, courage, and love from his old companion.

Wallace, Bill**
A dog called Kitty
Afraid of dogs since he was attacked by a mad one, Ricky resists taking in a homeless pup that shows up at the farm.

junior non-fiction

Many boys are interested in factual (non-fiction) books instead of fiction. Choose books based on subjects they care about such as sports, extreme sports, cars, military vehicles & weapons, etc.  Below are a few non-fiction titles that may be of interest.

Brandenburg, Jim                    J OS 599.74442
To the top of the world: adventures with Arctic wolves

Birdseye, Tom                         J690.89
A kids' guide to building forts
Presents a brief history of forts, step-by-step instructions for building indoor and outdoor forts, hints on where to obtain materials, and safety tips.

Davis, Jim**                             J741.5
Garfield Series

Dragonology: the complete book of dragons                               J398.2454

eyewitness books
On our library’s card catalog, do a Word search and type in “Eyewitness Books” to see a list of all the titles we have in this series.

Fleischman, John                    J612.82
Phineas Gage: a gruesome but true story about brain science

Grandits, John                         J811.6
Technically, it's not my fault: concrete poems

Guinness world Book of Records
J031.02

Macaulay, David                      J600
The way things work

Schwartz, Alvin**                   J398.25
scary stories to tell in the dark

Watterson, Bill**                      J741.5
Something under the bed is drooling: a Calvin and Hobbes collection

Wulffson, Don                         J609
The kid who invented the trampoline: more surprising stories about inventions


     While compiling this booklist, I came across a great website called GUYSREAD.com that has very good information for any frustrated parent of a boy who struggles with reading or who does not like to read. Please check this website out—Jon Scieszka, author of “Stinky Cheese Man,” is the spokesperson for this initiative. Several of the books you see on this list are recommended titles from this website.

Lolly Light/Librarian
Loveland Public Library
7/05







 

 

 

 

 

 


 

 

 

© 2005 , City of Loveland, Colorado