BOOKS for 10 yr old dd and 11 yr old son PLEASE!!

[hullygully]

We will be away for two months in the Summer and both my kids are great readers (no friends/ machines there, you see!). I need suggestions for both of them. They have read the Little House series, Harry Potters, Warriors, Noel Streatfield, Horowitz, a lot of the children's classics. I need long complicated books so they last and partic faves are action spies, and ponies (not Heartland, read those). ANY suggestions? Please? Thanks.

[bubblagirl]

could you have alook in a charity shop all sorts of age appropriate books pass through there and cheap and you can send them back when done or give away having saved money

[hullygully]

Bump.

[Bink]

If you're in the UK (and going elsewhere within the UK) you can get temporary membership of the library where you're going - just drop in with your home library cards (obv. you have to be library members at home first, but I'm presuming you are - if not, though, it only takes minutes) & they'll sign you up.

This has been BRILLIANT for us.

[Bink]

PS bubblagirl's suggestion is really good - we do that too. Holiday places tend to have very well-stocked 2nd hand shops.

[hullygully]

Thank you. We will be up a mountain miles from anywhere in Greece, hence need to get 'em in advance..I might not make the shops before we go (vv busy and HATE shopping)so was going to get them from Amazon.

[Marina]

Have they read Young Bond and also Tunnels and Deeper?
How about Michele Paver? Chris Riddell's Edge Chronicles?
Action/chase/caper stuff, can you try for some Paul Berna on Abebooks? He is OP these days but was HUGE in France and Britain in the 70s and his books are gripping according to ds
You have not mentioned history. Your dd might enjoy Alison Plowden's Danger to Elizabeth and Alison Uttley's A Traveller in Time, also Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond.
Rosemary Sutcliff: Eagle of the Ninth
C Northcote Parkinson, Ponies Plot (also Abebooks alas) is excellent vintage horse fun
Ds also loves Molesworth for light relief
and take this with you too, perhaps?
Geraldine McCaughrean's Britannia is a compendium of stories about British history definitely aimed at 8 pluses...

[Bink]

Ah, OK.
Well, do you know Red House books? For situations like yours, I'd go for just masses of their LOVELY bargain compendia, whether or not I rated the books themselves already, so:

Wikit Chronicles

Geraldine McCaughrean batch, as suggested by Marina

Philip Pullman, if not done already

And then there is Red House's more generalist sibling company, Book People:

Lost collection

Spiderwick batch

Dr Who batch

The Dr Who batch I'd recommend especially - the writing itself is a bit easy, & they look quite short, but this particular lot are written like flow-charts with different possible sequences - so you read one chapter, then decide which is going to be your next, and then the next ... it means the books can be read over & over again before they are exhausted. (We took them to Greece in April )

There's tons more - look under the "collections" headings.

[hullygully]

Thank you both very much, some brilliant ideas. (I particularly like the "related search" which comes up on the Amazon link for "Pick Me Up" which is "Confessions of an Air Hostess"....Will start ordering frantically.

[christywhisty]

DS 12 loved

[[http://www.amazon.co.uk/s?ie=UTF8&index=blended&link_code=qs&tag=mumsnet&ascsubtag=mnforum-21 maximum%20ride&sourceid=Mozilla-search Maximum Ride Books by James Patterson]

There are also a series called Cherub by Robert Munchmore which Ds hasn't read but some of his friends have recommended

[christywhisty]

oops
Maxiumum Ride books by James Patterson

[MrsWeasley]

My DS, aged 11 years, enjoys these

[christywhisty]

My DD liked Cornelia Funke Inkheart

[Ellbell]

A few more suggestions. I should add a disclaimer to the effect that I have a dd who is only just 8, but she reads stuff that is aimed at older kids, so some of this might be suitable.

The Ingo series by Helen Dunmore (now up to 4 books: Ingo, The Tide Knot, The Deep, and The Crossing of Ingo. These are fab (and quite long, so will last a while).

Have you already read the Roman Mysteries series?

DD has just read I Coriander by Sally Gardner and loved that.

Also anything by Cornelia Funke has been a big success. Some are aimed at younger readers, but Inkheart/Inkspell might be OK for slightly older children.

You mentioned ponies, so you could try My Friend Flicka (and sequels) by Mary O'Hara. (DD has just read that, but got frustrated by the fact that the protagonist was a boy and that girls were portrayed as 'sissy'!) There is always Black Beauty as well [pack tissues...!].

DD has also recently enjoyed The Fire Thief, which is a retelling of the Prometheus myth.

The Britannia series looks interesting Marina. When you say that it's aimed at over-8s, is that because of the language or because of the content? When are you off to B-C? I am having withdrawal symptoms, as only going to Devon this year.

[Ellbell]

Oops, cross-posted in a Cornelia Funke-related way with Christy!

Also, dd loved the Greenwich Chronicles (Time Wreccas is one, but there are others and I can't remember the titles now) by Val Tyler.

[Marina]

Sorry hullygully!

[Ellbell]

OK... will save those for later, then. DD doesn't cope with gruesome. Also, she particularly hates exploitation. Talking about the Roman Mysteries books she has to spell out the word S-L-A-V-E or to refer to 'that thing that Nubia is', because the idea upsets her [sweet!]. School sent her home with a horrid book (ORT!) about child slavery in India which really upset her. I complained (about this and about another book which had a boy not sure who his dad was as his mum turned out to have had an affair years earlier... this was ORT too, and dd was a young 7 at the time!) and they took her off the reading scheme altogether, since when she has been happy as Larry reading whatever she fancies!

Sorry for hijack (again), hullygully. Enjoy these suggestions!

[hullygully]

Thanks for these.

[RosaLuxembunting]

Not great with boys, but DD1 is 10 and loves the Ingo series which Ellbell mentioned and is eagerly awaiting the next installment of Roman mysteries. (Out today, I do believe)
One book that might work for both of them is The Alchemyst by Michael Scott - the sequel has just come out in hardback and have ordered it for DD1's birthday as she is dying to find out what happens next.
Another that I have given to various boys and girls aged 10-13 and was enjoyed by all is The Medici Curse though I may be biased as it was written by a friend.

[Porpoise]

Great suggestions here. Can I add the Percy Jackson books?

[Marina]

Porpoise, you just beat me to it! Ds got the first Percy Jackson for his birthday from his godfather, and he is gripped already. I hadn't heard about these before but thought of this thread as I looked at the book jacket
Ds also got given a Michele Paver, as previously cited, and the third in a lovely series of novels by Anne Forbes, highly recommended if your family lives in or visits Edinburgh

[hullygully]

Thank you. Am going to have to buy shares in Amazon soon..

[Porpoise]

Marina - the PJ books are fab. Just got sent the proof of the new one and am hiding it until ds1's birthday.

Haven't tried him on Michele Paver. How old is your ds?

Ooh, and it was your recommendation that made me get Tunnels. What a great read! Thank you for that.

[Marina]

Ds is just nine. He really rates Michelle Paver. Glad Tunnels was a hit!
I do find it hard matching his reading enthusiasm with his youngish age tbh. There is a lot of good fiction for teens which he is still really too young for

[Porpoise]

Yes, same here (ds1 is 9, about to turn 10) and hoovers books up. Was a bit nervous about him reading Horowitz (PFB alert) but he seems to have survived!

Ooh, just thought of this one which has been a recent hit...