Easy Reader Series That Boys Will Love

The question I  get asked the most often is — can you recommend something my 5, 6, 7-year-old boy will actually want to read?

It’s a tough age, for both boys and girls, because they’re used to being read to and frequently haven’t quite gotten into the habit of reading on their own.  Or they want to read, but get frustrated because the material that interests them is too difficult for their reading level.

Here are three different series, each of which has lots of books in the series so if he likes it you can get more.  I’ve included a sample page from each series so you can gauge for yourself if the reading level is appropriate for your little man.

The Fly Guy series by Tedd Arnold is adorable fun with quirky cartoons and zany plots that keeps kids reading and laughing.  In the first book we meet a boy who goes out searching for a smart animal to take to The Amazing Pet Show and bumps into a fly that is intelligent enough to say the child’s name, Buzz. Although his parents and the judges feel at first that a fly is only a pest, not a pet, the insect puts on a performance that astounds them all and wins an award.

Got a little superhero at home?   It doesn’t matter if his favorite crime-fighter is Superman, Batman, Spiderman or even, gulp, Wonder Woman, there are tons of these “I Can Read” books in which good always defeats evil. This series will have them reading without even knowing that it’s good for them.

The P.J. Funnybunny series is a very sweet series that deals with problems that feel relatable to kids.  For example, in this book P.J. thinks that camping is not for girls.  At least, that’s what P.J. and his pals tell Donna and sister Honey Bunny when they want to tag along on a camping trip. But when two mysterious ghosts frighten the boys all the way home, only the girls know the real story.

Next time, I’ll tackle the same topic except we’ll switch genders and talk about girls as emerging readers.

Best Boxed Sets Gifts for Readers 4 – 8

If Santa is looking for some gift ideas for good little emerging readers, I have a few suggestions.

1.  What do the Magic Tree House, Junie B. Jones, A to Z Mysteries, Andrew Lost, and Nate the Great series have in common? Not only are the main characters spunky and lovable kids whose exciting adventures have captivated readers for decades—they’re also all found in one place in the Favorite Series Starters boxed set.

This is the first-ever sampler of its kind, introducing young readers to five favorite series through the first book in each. Kids will be clamoring to read more—and will have five different series to pursue—after they’ve read the “favorite firsts” in this collection.

This is an awesome collection for any young reader.

2.  How did four strange teachers get into this little box?

Meet a teacher who eats bonbons, a principal who kisses pigs, a librarian who thinks she’s George Washington, and an art teacher who dresses up in pot holders! They’re all inside this box! They must be getting pretty crowded in My Weird School Collection by Dan Gutman.

3.  Ivy and Bean are two friends who never meant to like each other. This boxed set, Ivy and Bean: books 1 – 3 by Annie Barrows,  is a delightful introduction to these spunky characters. It includes the first three books in the Ivy and Bean series and a secret treasure-hiding box with a surprise inside.

“Clementine” by Sara Pennypacker

Clementine is having not so good of a week.
– On Monday she’s sent to the principal’s office for cutting off Margaret’s hair.
-Tuesday, Margaret’s mother is mad at her.
-Wednesday, she’s sent to the principal…again.
-Thursday, Margaret stops speaking to her.
-Friday starts with yucky eggs and gets worse.
-And by Saturday, even her mother is mad at her.

As Clementine says, “Spectacularful ideas are always sproinging up in my brain.” All the better for the young readers who like to laugh. Reminiscent of Ramona, Judy Moody and Junie B. Jones, “Clementine” by Sara Pennypacker (ages 7 -11) is an ingenuous third-grader with a talent for trouble and a good heart.

Her best friend is her neighbor Margaret, a fourth-grader who experiences both qualities firsthand.

After all, plenty of kids may have had their hair chopped off by a helpful friend in an effort to get the glue out, but how many of those friends would think to improve matters by drawing hair back on the scalp, forehead, and neck with a Flaming Sunset permanent marker?

“It looked beautiful, like a giant tattoo of tangled worms,” Clementine observes in the fresh, funny, first-person narrative.

Marla Frazee’s expressive ink drawings capture every nuance of the characters’ emotions, from bemusement to anger to dejection. Sometimes touching and frequently amusing, this engaging chapter book is well suited to reading alone or reading aloud to a roomful of children.  (Booklist)

Clementine has loads more charm than some of the other “girl” series. It’s a wonderful choice if you have a 2nd or 3rd grade girl who isn’t clicking with other series books.

“I Can Read” Books with the Wonderful Arnold Lobel

I was at a friend’s house the other day and her first grader was reading Arnold Lobel’s “Mouse Tales.”  (Ages 4 – 8 )   I couldn’t help but be reminded how enchanting I find both Mr. Lobel’s stories and illustrations.   As any parent can tell you, there are a ton of “learn-to-read” books out there, but for my money you just can’t go wrong with these timeless, quaint, engaging stories.

Frog and Toad

So who was this Lobel guy, you ask?  Hey, that’s what I’m here for!

Uncle Elephant

Born in 1933,  Arnold Lobel wrote and/or illustrated over 70 books for children during his distinguished career. To his illustrating credit, he had a Caldecott Medal book — Fables (1981) — and two Caldecott Honor Books-his own Frog and Toad are Friends (1971) and Hildilid’s Night by Cheli Duran Ryan (1972).  He has a Caldecott Honor for Frog and Toad Together.

Owl at Home

Mr. Lobel passed away in 1987, but to his greatest credit, he had a following of literally millions of young children with whom he shared the warmth and humor of his unpretentious vision of life.

Here are a few excellent choices if you have a book baby who’s just getting the hang of this whole reading thing.  But there are many more to choose from as well.

Uncle Elephant

Owl At Home

The Frog and Toad Collection

Grasshopper on the Road

PLEASE WRITE IN THIS BOOK by Mary Amato

Please Write in This Book by Mary Amato (ages 7 – 10)   tells the harrowing tale of what happens when a teacher leaves a blank composition book in the Writer’s Corner for her students to find with the instructions “Please Write in this Book.”

Third grade teacher has Ms. Wurtz decided to encourage creative dialogue by leaving a blank notebook in the hopes that students will “talk to each other.”  The only rules are to “have fun” and “sign your name.”  She promises not to read the entries until the end of the month.  (and she seemingly keeps this promise despite the uproar that ensues)

A Pirate’s Guide to First Grade

Here’s the WSJ’s childrens book review from today. Thought it sounded cute!

Young children who love pirates—and parents who might relish reading aloud with swashbuckling gusto—are going to find “A Pirate’s Guide to First Grade” just their cup of grog.

The rollicking tale follows a boy as he embarks on his first day of school in the company of a ghostly crew of rowdy, swaggering pirates who are visible, of course, only to him. The boy himself sounds as if he has spent more time sailing under the Jolly Roger than chewing on Jolly Ranchers. “Arrr!” he says by way of introduction. “What a slobberin’ moist mornin’!” Licked awake by his “scurvy dog,” the boy leaps out of bed and gets himself shipshape. “Me mother was soggy with fare-thee-wells, fussing over this, that, and the other thing,” he tells us. “Fair winds!” he cries to her and sets off, his lunchbox carried by a wraithlike parrot.

After cheerfully boarding a big yellow school bus, the boy and his roistering comrades disembark at elementary school, where they meet the first-grade teacher, “a fine old salt” named Silver. School turns out to be jolly enough, but even pirates are apt to wilt under the workload: “I’ll make no bones about it,” the boy confides at one point, “Cap’n Silver worked us like black dogs on a hot day. We counted and spelled ’til we nearly dropped, brain-addled and weary.”

Greg Ruth’s retro illustrations for James Preller’s story adhere in a satisfying way to piratical convention—his buccaneers have flowing beards, eye patches and gnarly expressions—but he adds witty modern-day touches, too, like the vaporous juice box in one man’s hand. Children may quibble with a mildly didactic ending that shows the narrator finding “treasure” at the library, but that hardly sinks an otherwise lively read.  —Meghan Cox Gurdon

The Crate of Danger! It’s not easy being a 7 year old mad scientist.

Franny K. Stein is not your average girl — she’s a mad scientist and she is fabulous!   She prefers poison ivy to daisies and piranha to goldfish, and when Franny jumps rope, she uses her pet snake.

In Franny K. Stein’s Crate of Danger (boxed set) by Jim Benton (ages 7 -9) we learn that although being a mad scientist is exciting, it does have its drawbacks. From fending off giant monstrous fiends to getting a lab assistant to battling her own teenage self, Franny has her hands full!  Your book babies can join her in her first four wacky, weird, creepy adventures.

The publisher lists this series at a reading level of 9 -12, but I think it skews younger, more like 7 -9.

Books in this set include:

Lunch Walks Among Us

Attack of the 50-Ft. Cupid

The Invisible Fran

The Fran That Time Forgot

Hey wait, there’s more!  You can also get your very own Franny K. Stein “action figure flashlight!”  Go Franny!

Never Glue Your Friends to Chairs and more excellent advice from Roscoe Riley

Roscoe Riley Rules #1:  Never Glue Your Friends to Chairs by Katherine Applegate (ages 4 – 8 ) is the first title in this new series for independent readers introducing good-hearted, mishap-prone first-grader Roscoe.  In short chapters filled with simple, snappy sentences, Roscoe tells his own story.

He’s excited about his class’ bee-song performance for the school open house. But the students’ bobbing antennas keep slipping, and kids won’t stay seated. Aiming to help, he tries Super-Mega-Gonzo Glue, a too-successful solution that attaches antennas to chairs and brings chaos, remorse, and a new appreciation for the awesome power of glue.

Roscoe is an appealing, lively kid whose story is both entertaining and thought-provoking (adults may want to review with kids the meaning and repercussions of permanent glue), and Biggs’ expressive pencil drawings add to the humor. A list of Way Cool Things that Somebody Should Invent closes the book.

The second title in the series, Roscoe Riley Rules #2: Never Swipe a Bully’s Bear, is also filled with comic mishaps.  There’s obvious appeal for boys, but girls will like Roscoe as well.  Grades K-3. (Booklist)

Mind your own beeswax! Take a secret peek into “Amelia’s Notebook”

Got a sweet young reader who isn’t crazy about actually reading?  All the Junie B’s and Judy M’s of the world hold no appeal for her? “Too many words!”  Then check out this fun, colorful series.  Your kidlets will be reading without even knowing it’s good for them.

Amelia’s Notebook by Marissa Moss (ages 7-10, strong girl appeal) is designed as an upbeat, first-person story which resembles a real diary.   The cover bears the familiar black-and-white abstract design of a .99 cent composition book, decorated with color cartoons by Amelia, the book’s nine-year-old “author.”

Inside, on lined pages, Amelia writes about her recent move to a new town, doodles pictures of people she meets and saves such mementos as postage stamps and a birthday candle.

She misses her best friend, Nadia, but her moments of sadness are balanced by optimism-she distracts herself by drawing and by writing short stories. In appropriately conversational terms, Amelia complains that her big sister invades her privacy (“So Cleo if you are reading this right now-BUG OFF and STAY OUT”); gripes about cafeteria food (“Henna says they use dog food); and jokes in classic elementary-school gross-out fashion.

Readers will understand Amelia’s wish to put her “top-secret” thoughts on paper, and they’ll notice that even though she’s uneasy about attending a different school, she’s starting over successfully. (Reed Business Information, Inc)

Keep in mind that there are some 15 books in the series.  Also, a mildde-school aged Amelia has another series of journals about life after elementary school.

Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew. A new twist on an old favorite.

Admit it.  You wanted to be Nancy Drew when you were a kid.

You dreamed of living in River Heights and tooling around in that blue convertible with Ned at your side as you solved dangerous mysteries.

I sat down not long ago and reread “The Secret of the Old Clock” which I hesitate to say suddenly felt very dated to me. This, I confess, was something of a crushing blow seeing as years ago, I had carefully boxed up my rather vast collection of “Nancy Drew” books in the hopes that I would one day have a daughter to present them to.

Now that I have a child nearing “Nancy Drew” age, I was devastated when I realized that she likely will not fall in love with Nancy and her pals the way I did.

Over the years, the Nancy Drew franchise ghost written by Carolyn Keene has had several incarnations, but one of the newest the “Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew” is arguable the cutest.

The Crew Clue series, launched in 2006, was written for girls 8 – 12.  In these books, a modern-day Nancy and her pals Bess and George are 8-year-old detectives solving slightly more domestic crimes like stolen toys and a wedding cake with a slice mysteriously missing!

More accessible than the original series and easier to read, these are great books for your little detective!