Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources More book recommendations, please...

Sorry to be asking this oft-asked question - but I have a fairly picky reader here.
DS8 is reading around 5-6 gr. level at least.

He will need to read 20 minutes a night this school year, so we will need lots of books which pique his interest.

Currently his interest is in books with no words, or very very few. Ex: Tribal Warfare (a graphic novel about dinosaurs, who of course did not speak english anyway). They went to the library at school and he picked out a book called 'robot dreams', very minimal words and some I Spy books. These are cool books, but I am pretty sure the assignment to read includes reading 'words'.

Here's what we did last night - went through almost all the various bookshelves, me suggesting, him rejecting almost everything: magician's nephew, books on space, books on chipmunks, velveteen rabbit, magic tree house, eragon, rocket boys, time warp trio, etc.
We finally landed on a book which his DGran gave him a while back - the story of Beowulf retold, with gorgeous and somewhat scary illustrations. I think it was published about when that movie came out.
I know he mentioned liking a book on Greek myths last year, so I am leaning towards looking into more of this type.
Any suggestions in that vein, or other veins which might suit would be greatly appreciated!!

Percy Jackson and the Olympians series are easy chapter books which heavily incorporate Greek mythology into a present day story. The first one is called The Lightning Thief.

I like to use the Renaissance Learning website to look up books. Using this link you can find books in the level you desire. And generally, the lower the number of AR points, the fewer words/pages there are.
I think younger children get overwhelmed with longer books when they are moving up quickly on their reading ability. They'll easily go through 10 books with 50 pages each, but won't even attempt 1 book with 500 pages.

The goal is sounds like figuring out how to make reading fun. The books that I have seen move several kids from reading-because-they-have-to and reading-because-they-cannot-put-the-book-down are Captain Underpants. Heck the first night one came into the house, dinner was late because I couldn't put it down. They are very clever and different than most anything else available. If you haven't tried them, they are worth a shot.

The books that really caught DS's attention, the ones, he couldn't put down as an early reader were the Bunnicula series about a vampire rabbit that sucks the juice out of all the vegetables in the house.

Acs is absolutely right! Captain Underpants. My kids have also loved the Percy Jackson series (but there are lots of words). I highly recommend the Myth-O-Mania series (now 8 books) by Kate McMullan. I just looked them up on Amazon & Barnes/Noble and I can't believe they're out of print! Little paperback books sell used for $33 to >$100! My kids Loved these, they were easy (still 9-12 age group) and fun. See if your library has them or can request.

Also, kids have a hard time resisting Roald Dahl books (reward with the movie "Matilda" after the book--Great movie--ooh needs to be added to the movie list about gifted kids!) My DS7 and I are reading Andrew Clements books now. They're always good.

One thing I found with having young advanced readers was that while they were able to read/comprehend at high level, the high level books may not have held their interest, or may be too long to keep their interest (so by the time they'd finish and AR test, they wouldn't remember a lot of the details). I tried to help them by reading a chapter to them, then they'd read the next chapter, and so on. This would make it go faster (they could test more promptly and not forget). It also gave them incentive to read because I couldn't read the next chapter till they had finished theirs and they could recap theirs to me verbally which helped retain what they had read.

I only stopped reading to them at about age 9 (so I'm savoring my reading time with DS7).

Does he like the DK one subject encyclopedias? DS loved that shelf at the library, particularly one about religion all over the world.

There are picture books with lots of words, like the Dinotopia series, you might try.

There are also comics you might try to get him hooked on - Calvin and Hobbs, Peanuts. My son is currently enjoying the web comic 'KXCD' i think it's called.

Have you tried the Encyclopedia Brown series? I ate those books up as a kid, and I was the type of kid who mainly read comic books.

I will add, in favor of comic and other "non-serious" types of books, that two independent testers placed me as reading at a 10th grade level when I was 9, so I must have been getting something out of all those Uncle Scrooge stories.

Does your son like science? My eldest loves to read science encyclopedias for kids. Also, what about magazines such as Ranger Rick, etc.?

I think that the length of a chapter book can be off-putting to some kids, especially if they aren't used to reading them. Books with discrete, bite-sized pieces can be the start of a good pathway into reading longer things.

Val

We love Encyclopedia Brown around here too - each "case" is about 10 pages. I don't know if these exist anymore or not, but when I was a kid i loved Choose Your Own Adventure books - at the end of each section, you'd get to pick what your character would do, and the story would be different for each choice.

We're also getting into Ramona and Henry Huggins.

we found "choose your own adventure" books at our local library. I think they've been updated, they look pretty new.

I just got the catalog from Great Potential Press (nice place)

www.giftedbooks.com

and they list what looks like a nice resource called "Some of My Best Friends are Books: Guiding Gifted readers from Preschool to High School" by Judith Wynn Halsted. Haven't actually seen it yet, but the description is interesting.

The Melvin Beederman books by Greg Trine are good. He's a superhero with a sidekick and the books are pretty funny. He might like them because they are fun to read.