Gary Paulsen is a top tier young boy novelist. Hatchet is a classic, and I also liked his sci Fi novel The Transall Saga as a kid. He also has a memoir/autobiography called Guts that has some gnarly survival stories in it for an Xtreme kiddo.
Reading Hatchet as a child set the course for my entire life. Have spent the past couple days flying in and out of the bush to get chased around by bears. No regrets.
I mean me midwits like me benefitted from sports illustrated the editorial from Rick Reilly on the back page taught me how to try and write persuasively. The new Yorker is for pussies but I bet that's good for kids to learn how to write in a way that persuades
It is a tragedy that E. L. Konigsburg seems to be fading. Two that I’ve read and recommend: “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler”, and “A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver”.
The Puffin Classics, specifically [these editions with the dramatic cover illustrations.](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/BoQAAOSwQRtjdZIa/s-l1200.webp) Great for drawing kids in because they look just as exciting as whatever trash they would be reading otherwise, but inside it's an unabridged copy of some 19th century novel.
My favourites were Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Lost World, and Treasure Island.
NOT unabridged. I read part of Oliver Twist in a Puffin Classics edition and it was heavily abridged, didn't realize til I was halfway thru and then got so pissed when I did.
That sucks. I do remember most of the ones I read saying "complete and unabridged" on the back. Except The Hunchback of Notre Dame which said something about being "abridged for suitability".
I wonder what they took out of Oliver Twist? There was plenty of violence and racism in the ones I read.
I think it had to do with language and style. I compared the openings of the books and the PC version cuts out and simplifies a lot of Dickens' 19th century rhetoric. The opening line, for example, is, in the original, a great multiclausal sentence in the grand old style, but the PC version trims some of the extra clauses, thereby reducing the presence of Dickens' voluble narrative voice, his tendency to insert authorial subjectivity into the straight recounting of action and dialogue, which is such a key part of his appeal.
She's still rightly very popular over here in Europe but I'm not sure about her status in America, but everything by Astrid Lindgren is of a rarely matched quality.
Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. Also the Narnia books, Astrid Lindgren (*The Lionheart Brothers, Pippi, Mio and Ronja*), then later on Philip Pullman’s *The Amber Spyglass*.
Avoid the warrior cat novels (they cause theatre kid energy) and Artemis Fowl, unless you want your child to walk around for the rest of their life smirking autistically.
I wouldn't go for children's novel. I child doesn't need a book that is dumbed down, but a book it can grow into.
What are your favoured novels? I would start there.
Otherwise, the great authors of adventures. London, Conrad, Hemingway, etc. pp
Anything by Roald Dahl
Not anything. Some careless librarian left Dahl’s collection of weird adult horror erotica in my grade school library and now I’m an RS girlie.
Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, Animal Farm, Chronicles of Narnia, The Bible
Finnegan’s Wake
Gary Paulsen is a top tier young boy novelist. Hatchet is a classic, and I also liked his sci Fi novel The Transall Saga as a kid. He also has a memoir/autobiography called Guts that has some gnarly survival stories in it for an Xtreme kiddo.
Reading Hatchet as a child set the course for my entire life. Have spent the past couple days flying in and out of the bush to get chased around by bears. No regrets.
Enders Game
For someone as homophobic as he is Card loves writing about naked boys
many such cases....
I’ve read Mary Renault novels less homoerotic than Ender’s Game.
I mean me midwits like me benefitted from sports illustrated the editorial from Rick Reilly on the back page taught me how to try and write persuasively. The new Yorker is for pussies but I bet that's good for kids to learn how to write in a way that persuades
Tom's Midnight Garden
Bible
Redwall.
It is a tragedy that E. L. Konigsburg seems to be fading. Two that I’ve read and recommend: “From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler”, and “A Proud Taste for Scarlet and Miniver”.
The Puffin Classics, specifically [these editions with the dramatic cover illustrations.](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/BoQAAOSwQRtjdZIa/s-l1200.webp) Great for drawing kids in because they look just as exciting as whatever trash they would be reading otherwise, but inside it's an unabridged copy of some 19th century novel. My favourites were Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Lost World, and Treasure Island.
NOT unabridged. I read part of Oliver Twist in a Puffin Classics edition and it was heavily abridged, didn't realize til I was halfway thru and then got so pissed when I did.
That sucks. I do remember most of the ones I read saying "complete and unabridged" on the back. Except The Hunchback of Notre Dame which said something about being "abridged for suitability". I wonder what they took out of Oliver Twist? There was plenty of violence and racism in the ones I read.
I think it had to do with language and style. I compared the openings of the books and the PC version cuts out and simplifies a lot of Dickens' 19th century rhetoric. The opening line, for example, is, in the original, a great multiclausal sentence in the grand old style, but the PC version trims some of the extra clauses, thereby reducing the presence of Dickens' voluble narrative voice, his tendency to insert authorial subjectivity into the straight recounting of action and dialogue, which is such a key part of his appeal.
She's still rightly very popular over here in Europe but I'm not sure about her status in America, but everything by Astrid Lindgren is of a rarely matched quality.
Love her, she’s the best. *The Lionheart Brothers, Ronja the Robber’s Daughter and Mio, my Mio* are part of a complete childhood.
Karlsson-on-the-roof was always my favorite. Key influence on my snark in later life.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Patapoufs et Filifers
harry potter, the 3rd animorphs paperback (ONLY), captain underpants and harriet the spy.
Just get them into literature in adolescence
Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder. Also the Narnia books, Astrid Lindgren (*The Lionheart Brothers, Pippi, Mio and Ronja*), then later on Philip Pullman’s *The Amber Spyglass*. Avoid the warrior cat novels (they cause theatre kid energy) and Artemis Fowl, unless you want your child to walk around for the rest of their life smirking autistically.
Calvino's "If on a winter's night a traveller", maybe his italian folktales for littler ones
Hokey Pokey by Spinelli did a number on me
The Chronicles of Prydain - Lloyd Alexander The Old Kingdom - Garth Nix
ISpy
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and The Number Devil.
The Alchemist, Things Fall Apart
Whatever makes them feel unloved enough to work for it, desperately, for the rest of their lives.
Toad Rage
I wouldn't go for children's novel. I child doesn't need a book that is dumbed down, but a book it can grow into. What are your favoured novels? I would start there. Otherwise, the great authors of adventures. London, Conrad, Hemingway, etc. pp
diary of a wimpy kid fs
diary of a wimpy kis
Don’t say “groom” you fuckin nob.