What are great books for boys? | Hacker News Reader

What are great books for boys?

12 pointsniels_olson23 comments

I'll start:

The Way Things Work (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0395428572/) and pretty much any book by David Macaulay (http://www.amazon.com/David-MacAulay/e/B000AP72G0/)

The Stars, A New Way to See Them, by HA Rey (author of Curious George) (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0395248302/)

and another collection (not intentionally for boys) over on Edward Tufte's site: http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00018v

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Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson.

Alice in Wonderland iff still young enough not to think girls are gross. Otherwise you must sneak up on him with the poetry, then introduce the book. (I've had success with reciting 'Jabberwocky' and 'The Walrus and the Carpenter.')

Learn 'If,' by Kipling, by heart. Then teach it slowly and patiently.

As an aside, quite a lot of Kipling is truly excellently boy friendly.

The Proverbs of Solomon, et al. Found in any Bible or Talmud. Bears repeated reading, as most eastern 'wisdom' literature does (The Book of Five Rings, The Art of War, etc.).

While we're at, why not the Narnia books? I loved them, and I'd no idea the Lion was apparently Jesus until I was nine or so.

But by far do not DO NOT forget Michel Ende's marvelous 'The Neverending Story.'

If you're only familiar with it from a movie, you've missed the best part, when the boy 'Bastian must take up arms and become the adventurer he has read about and loved.

If you actually want literature, my favorite book as a child was Where the Red Fern Grows. If they are around 14+ there are some great, captivating Hemmingway books. A Farewell to Arms, Island in the Stream, A Movable Feast, and The Garden of Eden (In that order).

I keeping editing as I think of new things. This may sound odd, but if they are in the 14+ range, How to Win Friends and Influence People is great. It changed a lot for me.

When I was like 9 I got the book How to be Twice as Smart and it taught me a ton of mental tricks.

This book taught me a lot (probably if the boy is like 10 or 12+?)

http://www.amazon.com/Backyard-Ballistics-Cannons-Cincinnati...

I think Where the Red Fern Grows was the first book I read as a kid that had any genuine emotional impact - I distinctly remember ending up in tears. I hope my son will get as much out of it when he's a bit older.

My Side of the Mountain---about a kid running away and actually living off the land.

Book of Virtues---don't give him this, just have it around in your house to read when bored. Gambling scandals notwithstanding, it's full of good stuff.

Blind Man's Bluff---for a kid a bit older, but it's about submarine history in the Cold War.

Surely your joking Mr. Feynman. This should be required reading for people in this thing of ours. Also Enders Game (fiction)

My son is 3.5 years old. Here are some of the books he loves.

The Magic School Bus series. For example:

http://www.amazon.com/Magic-School-Bus-Ocean-Floor/dp/059041...

If I Built a Car (a great book on design)

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0142408255/ref=oss_product

Manfish: A Story of Jacques Cousteau

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0811860639/ref=oss_product

My children like the George R. R. Martin books, the Philip Pullman books, the Harry Potter series, and other books much in that genre category. They also read "classic" literature as they get older, for example Oliver Twist or Tom Sawyer. Two of my sons have really liked A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (which I have never read) and I really liked The Chosen by Chaim Potok (which I reread a few years ago, and still thought was very good).

>y children like the George R. R. Martin books

How old are your children?

They're great books but extremely...non kid-safe.

Some would say the same about the Philip Pullman books. Once they can read on their own, I let my kids read anything that the public library keeps in its collection. They hear about a lot of these books from friends.

Still curious how old they are... Have you read George RR Martin?

I think my oldest was reading George R. R. Martin by age twelve (but I could be a year or two off), on the recommendation of a friend who is somewhat younger, and my second son, who is only just now a teenager, has read some of those books. I have not read anything by him.

On my part, I read the nonfiction book Treblinka by Jean-Francois Steiner

http://www.amazon.com/Treblinka-Jean-Francois-Steiner/dp/045...

by no older than age ten, and no one would describe that as children's literature. (I reread parts of it a few years ago just to check if what I remembered about how graphic the violence in it is was accurate--yes, that is a true book with very grim details about a Nazi death camp.) Children deal with book content on their own terms. I didn't finish Orwell's 1984, which my dad had in the house, until my third attempt (thirteen-going-on-fourteen), because I found that very disturbing, and I still found 1984 disturbing when I reread it last year. Some great literature just isn't child-friendly, fiction or nonfiction, but some of it is well worth reading even during childhood.

What's non kid-safe about them, and for kids of what ages?

Graphic rape, death, mutilation, etc. Probably OK for a kid in their teens but for an eight year old... it might be a little much.

The I Hate Mathematics Book was always a favourite in my family growing up. It's the kind of math they don't teach you in elementary school. I learned about googol, infinity, topology, permutations, parabolas, game theory, and all sorts of fun stuff. It taught me that math is not just the boring arithmetic that you learn in elementary school. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d.html/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/187-...

Fiction:

1. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

2. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas : An awesome closeup of revenge

3. The complete Sherlock Holmes series : 'nuff said.

Non fiction:

1. Cosmos - Carl Sagan : I fell in love with science post-reading this book.

2. October Sky - Homer Hickham : A real life story of how a group of boys in a backwater town build a rocket that changes their lives.

3. Chariots of the Gods - Erich Von Daniken - A real mind bender, even if you choose not to agree with his ideas.

My favorite book as a kid was Lord of the Rings, so I'll recommend that. Also H2G2.

Little Boys: Anything by Sendak, Donald Crews, Byron Barton. Dorling Kindersly Eyewitness series.

Bigger Boys: Phantom Tollbooth,Avi,anything with swords

Older: Jack London, Shakespere

Jack London for older boys? Maybe his later works... I re-read The Call of the Wild last year, and it practically reads like a children's book.

The Phantom Tollbooth is wonderful, especially for an up and coming logician or programmer! :)

What would you recommend for a younger boy, say 5-7 years old? Harry Potter might be too complex to catch on at first read IMO.

I'm reading the Harry Potter series to my 5 year old at a somwhat slow pace; slow, as we typically only have time for half a chapter per night and he seems to ask questions every odd sentence! I think he's managing to follow the story though - he just requires a bit of processing time and the odd query to keep it in order.

You can never go wrong with Roald Dahl of course - my son loved the BFG and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Pocketknives are always good. But how old are you thinking?

Personally, I'd stick with a pocketknife regardless of age. Or a lighter.

Jules Verne. Any would be good, but particularly Around the World in Eighty Days.

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