Personally, I love to read. Always have and I imagine I always will. When I was little I remember my nana would read fairy stories to me when she babysat, our favourite book was about flower children that I absolutely loved and when we weren’t reading that she would make stories up for me. Once I was old enough to read by myself I would devour books, loosing myself in the twists and turns and as a teenager I loved the Goosebumps series and the Babysitters club. As an adult my love for reading never stopped but it was put on hold for a short while as I had to read more academic journals for my studies and I found I really missed being able to loose myself in make believe, loosing yourself in journals about eating disorders and suicide just isn’t the same! But I’m back to reading everything and anything again now and it really does get the imagination going. At the moment I am loving Karen Rose and Jodie Picoult.
When I had my boys I was keen to pass on my love for books to them, so I read to them most days. When they were younger we could sit for hours at a time reading book after book, usually the same Thomas the Tank one over and over again but I didn’t mind as long as we were reading. The boys have so many books, I seem to be a little bit addicted to buying new ones and totally unable to throw any away, so we literally have hundreds. But I am pleased to say they too enjoy reading as much as I do. The tiddler will still sit and listen to short stories every night before bed but the 7 year old has out grown this now and prefers the chapter books, so we have started reading 1 or 2 chapters a night and sometimes he even reads a chapter to me too, which is lovely. I’m not sure how much longer he will want to read with his mum for so I am making the most of it at the moment and I am looking forward to starting our book advent in December this year as I feel it may just be me and the tiddler reading the Christmas stories next year.
However, I know that not many boys share the love for reading that mine do and it can often be a challenge to get them to do any independent reading. So I have put together a list of some of our favourite books in the hope that they ca help spark your child’s imagination too.
The best books for boys aged 7-9
David Walliams is a big hit with our seven year old. He has created some great chapter books that are mostly easy to read, understand and are also funny. Admittedly, we have enjoyed some more than others, our favourites include
Jack’s Grandpa.
*wears his slippers to the supermarket
*serves up Spam à la Custard for dinner
*and often doesn’t remember Jack’s name
But he can still take to the skies in a speeding Spitfire and save the day.
An exquisite portrait of the bond between a small boy and his beloved Grandpa – this book takes readers on an incredible journey with Spitfires over London and Great Escapes through the city in a high octane adventure full of comedy and heart.
A story of prejudice and acceptance, funny lists and silly words, this new book has all the hallmarks of David s previous bestsellers.
Our hero Ben is bored beyond belief after he is made to stay at his grandma s house. She s the boringest grandma ever: all she wants to do is to play Scrabble, and eat cabbage soup. But there are two things Ben doesn t know about his grandma.
1) She was once an international jewel thief.
2) All her life, she has been plotting to steal the Crown Jewels, and now she needs Ben s help
Darkness had come to the town. Strange things were happening in the dead of night. Children would put a tooth under their pillow for the tooth fairy, but in the morning they would wake up to find… a dead slug; a live spider; hundreds of earwigs creeping and crawling beneath their pillow.
Evil was at work. But who or what was behind it…?
The Horrid Henry books are brilliant for independent reading as the text is large, the sentences snappy and the chapters short.
This book contains HIDEOUS behaviour, terrible dancing, disgusting glop and a trip to France!
The Creakers
We are also starting to read some of the Tom Fletcher boos and our favourite so far is The Creakers
Lucy Dungston has woken up to find all the grown-ups in her town have disappeared.
Lucy’s friends are thrilled there are no more grown-ups. They’re running wild! They’re building roads of trampolines, and eating cereal for every meal.
But Lucy wants her mum back, and nothing is going to stop her.
Even if it means having to venture into the strange, upside-down world of the mysterious monsters under her bed!
And the upside-down world isn’t the most hygienic of places . . .
The best books for boys aged 4-6
If you are looking for books to read with a younger child that have beautiful pictures as well as great stories then we recommend the following
A beautiful book about Doctors and dragons with a hint of feminism and equality thrown in for good measure. If you are living near a theatre I would also recommend you look out for the production as we saw Zog at the Storyhouse in Chester and it was amazing.
A maths promoting story of a football playing spider told in the rhyming way Julia Donaldson is now so famous for.
Aliens love underpants, in every shape and size,
But there are no underpants in space, so here’s a big surprise….”
This zany, hilarious tale is delightfully brought to life by Ben Cort’s vibrant illustrations. With a madcap, rhyming text by award-winning Claire Freedman, this is sure to enchant and amuse the whole family!
Norman is a bear. A bear who LOVES honey.
According to Norman, there can never be enough honey; he needs to get his paws on more, more, more!
And who has the most honey? The bees, of course!
One little snail longs to see the world and hitches a lift on the tail of an enormous whale. Together they go on an amazing journey, past icebergs and volcanoes, sharks and penguins, and the little snail feels so small in the vastness of the world. But when disaster strikes and the whale is beached in a bay, it’s the tiny snail’s big plan that saves the day!
What are your children’s favourite books?