Books for Boys

Do you struggle to find books that you can get your boys interested in?  Here are some suggestions:

Books for Boys Who Are Emerging Readers

In her book, Bests Books for Boys K-8, Pam Allyn recommends the following books for boys who are emerging readers:

Action and Adventure

• Archie and the Pirates by Marc Rosenthal  
• Flat Stanley series by Jeff Brown
• Ghosts for Breakfast by Stanley Todd Terasaki
• Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow by Robert D. San Souci
• Superhero by Marc Trauss
• Tsunami! by Rimike Kajikawa

Art and Music

• Art by Patrick McDonnell
• The Art Lesson by Tomie dePaola
• Grandma's Gift by Eric Velasquez
• Ish by Peter H. Reynolds
• I SPY:  An Alphabet in Art by Lucy Micklethwait  
• Mole Music by David McPhail
• A Mouse Called Wolf by Dick King Smith

Nature and the Animal World:

• Actual Size by Steve Jenkins
• Bug Butts by Dawn Cusick 
• Big Tracks, Little Tracks:  Following Animal Prints by Millicent Selsam
• Bat Loves the Night:  Read and Wonder by Nicola Davies
• Buffalo Song by Joseph Bruchac
• Farm by Elisha Cooper
• First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger
• Gone Fishing:  Ocean Life by the Numbers by David McLimans
• Hottest, Coldest, Highest, Deepest by Steve Jenkins
• Never Smile at a Money by Steve Jenkins
• Spiders by Nic Bishop
• What Do You Do When Somethings Wants to Eat You? by Steve Jenkins  
• Who Eats What?  Food Chains and Food Webs by Patricia Lauber
• Whose Tracks Are These?  A Clue Book for Familiar Forest Animals by James Nail 

And she has lists for biographies/memoirs, comic books/graphic novels, expeditions, how-to, humor, math and numbers, mystery and horror, sports, and more.  If you have a boy with a special interest, she is bound to have a list of books he might like. 

Allyn  also shares books for each topic for developing and maturing readers.

Remember, the most important thing is to foster a sense of belonging for your young readers.  One way to do this is to choose authors and characters with whom your boys identify.

We don't want to limit what children read, but instead strive to stock our classroom libraries with an expansive awareness and acceptance of the books all children will love.  

Allyn's book is a great resource not only for books for emerging, developing, and maturing readers, but also to answer your questions on how you can support the development of your young male readers.   

Source: Iowa ASCD newsletter