Mumsnet Talk

My boys are aged 9 (almost 10) and 8. They love the horrible histories and have read/listened to pretty much all of them. They've given them a sense of history, chronology, gruesome stories etc and DS1 in particular loves to give us lengthy sets of facts. But what to read next? The gross factor and irreverence have clearly taken a hold of them and inspired an interest in history, but I'd quite like a slightly different angle for them now.

Any suggestions?

The boys in my class (Y5) really love the Darren Shan books. They've got demons in and are quite scary, but they can't get enough of them and I've had to buy two sets of the first 3 for my classroom because they're always arguing over who is going to read them next.

Or there are the horrible science/geog books in the same series.

Hope this was helpful x

Roman Mysteries, Ian Serralier, Rosemary Sutcliffe - historical-context novels

Usborne books the handbook series are a good factual read.

Or Antony Horrowitz it good too!

The My Story books for boys are good for this age. My history-obsessed 9 year old girl loves the girls version.

ah yes, mine the same age love these too

there are a set of books called Young Royals Books (that's not their title but there's a few in that range)

dd also recently read a story I THINK called Anne Boleyn and Me (can't remember) as if written by someone working with Anne Boleyn

dd loves those Horrible Histories books. Look out for the annuals. Dd loved the one last year and the year before.

I keep meaning to look up the child's book on the french revolution but not sure if they are still too young for it. Marina would remember what it was called!

oh and of course, the other ones to read are the Tony Robinson history ones (written in a similar way) (see the worst children's jobs in history etc.)

the *dead famous* series v similar to horrible histories and went down well with ds

Worst childrens jobs in history

and tbh (sorry stream of consciousness), I think this is a really underexplored area of children's books. Other than Horrible Histories and a few notable others, there isn't much in this area and some children are real history fiends!

1066 and all that

Why not try some Ladybird biographies?

e.g. Marie Curie

just the covers give me a frisson

What great suggestions - thank you very much.

I'm so pleased that these sort of books are available. Things that grab their imagination are so engaging and useful, and I love it that they have got a better sense of chronology than most of my generation has.

I've recently bought King of Shadows by Susan Cooper, which I'm planning on reading to them.

Some of the recent Doctor Who episodes have been great as well -eg Pompeii, Shakespeare.

Worst childrens jobs in history by Tony Robinson is a family fave for us, but worth checking out other history books by Tony Robinson as well