Great Books For Boys

Disclosure: For your convenience, this posts contains affiliate links to the products mentioned. 

FICTION: 

Of course all of these books are great for girls, too. But my girls are not my reluctant readers. Nicholas is 7 and learning to read. He is and always has been a kid who other people often describe as “all boy.” Sitting down to read a story, even for just ten minutes at a time, is not his favorite thing. But I’m a teacher at heart and it is important to me to establish a love of reading. That’s why I try to have a lot books around the house that pique his interest.  Right now these are his favorites. Click the picture of each book to be taken to its Amazon page through my affiliate link. 

We are currently reading The Missing Mitt (Hardy Boys: The Secret Files) to meet our goal for the library’s summer reading program. I was pleasantly surprised that Nick will sit and listen to me read a chapter at a time in this story about a missing baseball glove. My husband says he also used to be very fond of the Hardy Boys books. The chapters are short, there are illustrations frequently, and the vocabulary is basic enough that second or third graders could read this book themselves.

The Ralph Mouse Collection 
I still remember my third grade teacher, Mrs. Gmurek, reading these stories aloud to our class. A mouse riding on a toy motorcycle, what’s not to love?

When I taught second grade I read Judy Blume’s Super Fudge Series to my class. There were several students who would race each other to the classroom library to check out the other books in the series so that they could read ahead of the rest of the class. Disclaimer: Superfudge contains a passage disputing Santa. I do not read that passage out loud to kids, but none of my students who read the book themselves ever brought it up. 

Older boys really seem to enjoy the Goosebumps collection. My husband remembers these books fondly, my students liked checking them out from the library and getting them from the book fair, and Nicholas talks about wanting to try them himself. They are scary, though, so beware of that if you have a sensitive child. Try Goosebumps #51: Beware, the Snowman. 

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid  collection was ALWAYS a favorite among the students in my classroom and so was Captain Underpants ! 

NONFICTION: 

I was recently offered the chance to review some books from the Time for Kids company and Sports Illustrated. They sent us  TIME For Kids Big Book of WHEN: 801 Facts Kids Want to Know
TIME For Kids X-WHY-Z Animals: Little Kids Ask. We Answer.
 and Sports Illustrated Kids Big Book of Who: ALL-STARS: The 101 Stars Every Fan Needs to Know. Nicholas has loved all of these books (and so did Abby). He likes flipping through the pictures and having me read the captions with him. He does well only having to digest small bits of information at a time, instead of an entire story. The Big Book of When also has an entire section about airplanes, which is his favorite topic of all time. The X Why Z Animals book is full of fascinating Q &A  passages about animals. It answers questions like, “Why do Elephants have tusks?” and “Why aren’t bats birds?” I’m sort of bummed that I didn’t have this book as a resource in my science classroom, actually.  I also really like the price point for these books. They are available on Amazon for $10-$15, which I think is really reasonable for large, hardback books full of full color photographs and illustrations.

Update: I took the Time for Kids books in to my 6th grade classroom last year and they were a favorite among the middle school boys as well!

Do your boys have any favorites? Share them in the comments.

This post contains Amazon affiliate links for your convenience and we were provided with a few of the books to review. All opinions are my own. Photo credit: Deposit Photo