"Fascinating" books for 7yo

[BertieBotts]

DS has requested some "fascinating books" for his seventh birthday

When asked what this means he says:

• Books about dinosaurs
  

• Where there is this boy, and he's on a tropical island, and this tropical island, is like, right by the sea!
  

• Goblin books
  

• Cheese people, where a man cut them up into quarters, and then they ran away, because he wants to cut them up even smaller, and put them on his bread.
  

• Some troll books and some pirate books.
  

He likes Jeremy Strong and Roald Dahl, and the Magic Treehouse books, and Winnie the Witch. He can read short chapter books.

Does anybody have any suggestions?

[VillaVillekulla]

Admittedly it doesn't meet any of his criteria (other than it's a fascinating book) but he might like Emil and the Detectives. My 7yo loved it. She's currently Harry Potter obsessed and seems to find the books pretty fascinating.

[BertieBotts]

Sounds good! He's begging me to let him read Harry Potter but I'm concerned he'll zip through them and I'm not sure he'll cope with the later ones yet.

He said he doesn't mind if nobody knows a cheese book, because we can just make one out of paper.

[BertieBotts]

Oh, in fact, the fact that is a German book is even better, because we live in Germany so the other children might have read the same book! :)

[TenPinkFairies]

Oldies but some of the Enid Blyton famous five ones?

[BertieBotts]

I used to love Famous Five! I'll have a look. I'm going to check the library for these too :) We only have a small English language library here.

[Ausflug]

I had a couple of pirate stories by Margaret Mahy when I was 7. One was called The Pirate Uncle, the other The Great Piratical Rambunction (I think).

Not sure if they are still in print (and I suppose they might seem old fashioned now), but they were good fun, and I think fairly simple and short - and first one would also fit the boy living right by the sea, (though unfortunately not on a tropical island) criteria.
In the first two children go to stay with their uncle, and they suspect he is a pirate, and have to sleuth around trying to find out if he is. And in the second a pair of brothers have a retired pirate as a babysitter, and he holds a pirate party at their house.

[BertieBotts]

Is Treasure Island really a timeless classic or is it a bit old and fusty now? I've never read it.

Those sound good, Ausflug.

[wonkylegs]

Our 7yo DS really likes the horrible science books (says they are fascinating, we bought him the set on offer) which may or may not be his cup of tea but I think the horrible histories series has a pirates one.
He also loves the How to train your dragons series by Cressida Cowell which are full of pirates, Vikings & Dragons of course.

[Ausflug]

I think Treasure Island might be hard going for a 7 year old - it starts off quite exciting, but then gets a bit too involved and wordy.
Same with Swiss Family Robinson. We have got the ladybird abridged versions of both, and of the Lost World, (by Conan Doyle, not the book of the film and DD (also 7) often starts off enthusiastically reading them, but then a couple of pages in ends up just flicking through looking at the pictures. Or if I read them to her, she gets bored, takes them off me and flicks through looking at the pictures.

Nothing wrong with looking at pictures though! And it has made me think of Dinotopia, which would be fabulous for you to read together, and an absolutely "fascinating book". The pictures are stunning.

[BertieBotts]

He tried Horrible Science (I used to love them :)) and How To Train Your Dragon but found both too difficult at the moment. Might look back on those in a year or so.

OK sounds like the same may be true of Treasure Island. I'll have a look out for Dinotopia.

[CountlessScreamingArgonauts]

Dinosaur Trouble by Dick King Smith might meet that description. DS enjoyed it and is dinosaur mad!

[Moleyjay]

'The Stinky Cheese Man and fairly stupid stories'

[ShipwreckedAndComatose]

If he likes Jeremy Strong then try Tom Gates

My 8 year old and 10 year old love this series.

[PeppermintPasty]

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2Fbooks%2Fdp%2F0763622281&ei=QYOhVaO3CLKR7Aa645uYDw&usg=AFQjCNGbZxZVx2Ml1bXY1ATjBZ3zADA2sw&sig2=yXgnjXdJH4EH8Qpfq2Ht3w&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21

It's not a story book, but this book, the Encyclopaedia Prehistorica (from a series of books I think) is amazing. It's a work of art and totally jaw dropping. My 8 yo loves it, he's had it a couple of years.

[yellowcurtains]

number two is Oliver and The Seawigs- really- the tropical islands move...

[yellowcurtains]

Pirates- what about the Jolly Rogers by Johnny Dudlde, there's two- the Ghostly Galleon, and The Cave of Doom. He'll easily read them himself, and they have nice illustrations.

I'm really struggling with the cheese one!
What about Here Be Monsters which is by ?Alan Snow.
It has trolls (covering another request) AND cheese.... the cheese doesn't have a happy ending
Again- the illustrations are out of this world- it's set in a pseudo-Victorian English town, and they are just so detailed and gorgeous.

[madamehooch]

The Land of Neverbelieve.

Not a chapter book but an amazing picture book for older readers (7 is ideal) to encourage imagination. It's about an explorer who discovers an island that disappears when you leave it. The book is a record of the amazing things the explorer has found on the island. Lots of maps, trees made out of pasta - this is a wonderful book with something different to look at every time you read it. I highly recommend it!

[madamehooch]

Also Oliver and the Seawigs. Oliver ' s parents are explorers and go missing when they visit some strange islands near their home. Oliver tries to find them and discovers that these islands are not quite what they seem ...

Wonderful illustrations plus humour make this a very entertaining quirky read. Be prepared for your son to want a sea monkey though. ..

[Ausflug]

Just thought of another one that might be good:

The Secret of Platform 13, by Eva Ibbotson. It has witches, trolls, an island, lots of magic and fantasy - it's about magical creatures from a magic island that have come to rescue their prince who got stuck in "our" world as a baby (he's now an 8 year old boy). It's funny and exciting.

I think it would be a read-together one rather than one he could manage by himself at the moment.

[BertieBotts]

These are all great. Thank you! I love that two separate people have managed to find cheese books to suggest

[ShipShapeAhoy]

What about pippi longstocking? I think that's a fascinating book! (Might even have some cheese people)

[PeppermintPasty]

No cheese in it, but The Runaway Dinner by Allan Ahlberg and Bruce Ingman is very funny. It involves a sausage called Melvin, IIRC, and some peas called Paul, Percival and Peter? Anyway, much loved in this house.

[LauraChant]

I like the cut of your son's jib. i think he should write the cheese story himself.

Re: Harry Potter, my son is also seven and I had thought that he wasn't quite ready particularly for the later books. But I got him the first one for Christmas because he had started to play the Lego Harry Potter game and it gives away a lot of the plot! He seems to have self-moderated somewhat - he zipped through the first three, ploughed through the fourth and has decided himself he doesn't want to read the later ones for quite a while yet.

[BertieBotts]

Oh fair enough :) Might look out my copies, then.

[emmaMBC]

Oh yes, you definitely need Oliver & the Seawigs by the sounds of it!!

I've a feeling The 13-Storey Treehouse might work very well too. It is part of a growing series, each new book sees another 13 storeys added to Andy and Terry's treehouse! it's a lot of fun.