I know that this is supposed to be a high school teaching blog. Please pardon me for a bit while I veer off course into a topic close to my heart: getting your own children to read.
It’s summer time, and I have two children. I live in Texas, so I have two children who have to stay inside much of the summer. If you live in Texas, you know what I mean. If you don’t live in Texas, just understand that if you can’t get outside between the hours of 4:00 and 10:00 in the morning, just give it up.
Let’s just say that because of the extreme heat here, I spend a lot of time combing Pinterest for crafts for kids and reading kid book recommendations.
Turning kids into readers is a passion of mine. Because I work with high school students, I love to encourage teachers and parents of younger children to begin this work before these children arrive in my class.
Today I’m sharing some of my 10 year old son’s favorite books and book series. By “favorite,” I mean that these are the books he doesn’t put down except for bathroom and snack breaks. He did look over this list and made me remove a couple of items before I posted it, so please know that this is a kid-approved list of kid-approved books.
These are also in no particular order.
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians (series) by Rick Riordan
- Heroes of Olympus (series) by Rick Riordan
- A Series of Unfortunate Events (series) by Lemony Snicket
- Peter and the Starcatchers (series) by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
- The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (series) by Tom Angleberger
- The Misadventures of Benjamin Bartholomew Piff (series) by Jason Lethcoe
- The Guardians of Ga’Hoole (series) by Kathryn Lasky
- How to Train Your Dragon (series) by Cressida Cowell
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator by Roald Dahl
- Gregor the Overlander (series) by Suzanne Collins
What are your children’s favorite books? What has been your experience getting your own children to read?
P.S. He also had a short obsession with whales and read Moby-Dick:
Teach It Slant 
For clever use of language and inventive plots (though probably more appropriate for teenagers, the Flavia DeLuce series by Alan Bradley.
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I like the Flavia DeLuce series by Alan Bradley because of its inventive plots and use of language. It’s probably more appropriate for teenagers, though, because there are some more mature themes. I’d read it before giving it to a child.
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Two intriguing things I see here:
1. Nothing is all by itself–almost everything on the list is part of a series.
2. No nonfiction!
As a youth services librarian, I completely agree that starting young is important. What I’ve noticed as kids get older, though, is not a lack of interest per say, it’s a lack of time. So teaching them to find the time to read is just as critical!
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Yes–true observations! When he was younger, he read almost exclusively nonfiction. I think this was because he was a good reader at a fairly young age. He went through an awkward reading phase where everything that was at his reading level wasn’t really appropriate content-wise, and what was appropriate content-wise was too easy. We used to check out huge stacks of books about planets and dinosaurs!
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