Really good book for 11 year old boy

My 12yo has just spent months reading The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness (8 book series).

If he's not keen on fantasy what about some more realistic children's classics like The Machine Gunners, Tom's Midnight Garden (timeslip but otherwise no fantasy), Stig of the Dump, The Boy with the Bronze Axe, Swallows and Amazons, My Family and Other Animals, The Silver Sword, or Danny Champion of the World (my favourite Roald Dahl).

Anything by Darren Shan. Cirque du Freak saga is excellent it is a 12 book saga but worth it. Other series by Darren Shan will be shorter. His books are like kids horror (not scary) cirque due freak is about a vampires assistant

Tom Mitchell is one of DS’ English teachers!

The Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz has been a firm favourite here

Also The Explorer

Anything by Katherine Rundell - there are quite a few

The Castle of Tangled Magic, The Girl who speaks bear, and the house of chicken legs all by Sophie Anderson

Dragon Mountain by Katie and kevin Tsang

Anything by Onjali Q Rauf

Smelling by David Arnold

The switch by Anthony Horowitz

Holes

Horrible histories box set. Anything by Rick Riordan. Mine also enjoyed the Willard Price animal adventure books but quite old and probably not 'PC' anymore.....

We really enjoyed The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett. It's about tiny people who live in a carpet and a battle. I guess it's kind of Tolkien like but lighter with humour.

What about the Young Sherlock Series. My son has read many of the same as your son and just read all these. (He doesn't like Perry Jackson or any Sci fi type books).

DS2 (nearly 12) is a reluctant reader but will always read Asterix. He is currently doing well on Terry Pratchett's Wee Free Men.

Tom Mitchell's books are brilliant - start with his first "How to Rob a Bank"

The Diamond Brothers series by Anthony Horowitz are very funny.
Maybe a good solid (modern) classic like Goodnight Mr Tom.
Roald Dahl? His autobiography Boy is brilliant.

My son loves the skullduggery pleasant series. He's almost 11.

Stonebird by Mike Revell

From March 2020 I tried to get my then just turned 11 year old DS2 (last few months of year 6) to read every day. It didn't quite work as planned but he did read and watch a bit of Horrible Histories most days. We mostly read about 6 Michael Morpurgo books together, that he mostly read to dp and myself rather than otherwise. I never quite got him to read or do much else on his own. I also set him a few mini research projects - sets of questions that he needed to find the answers online to, and talk through things with us. These included bits on the Blitz and the homefront, London during WWII, early years of football history, including some black footballers. This included quite a bit of online reading. Interestingly, when he was just learning to read and when he was quite young, my mum was quite impressed by how much playing games seemed to boost his reading ability.

We live in a very diverse bit of north London, much of it built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries around the developing railways.

DS1 was a bit later starting to read, then was a really keen independent reader from year 3 until year 7. In year 8, he developed a more active social life before the pandemic and started reading the first volume of Lord of the Rings - I keep trying to persuade him to try other books but without much joy. When he was reading a lot at about your son's age, he liked Diana Wynne Jones, Philip Reeves, Rick Riordan, Malorie Blackman - quite a bit of fantasy but mixed with some very recognisable this world reality too.

I've a very reluctant 11 yr old boy, and he recently enjoyed skellig. Also the Indian in the cupboard.

Percy Jackson got my dt through the first lock down and because they did about ancient Greeks at school they had a bit of background knowledge. Bought all 5 books for £10 at the works. They went on to watch the movies too.
Also David badiel was a hit.
Dt1 is not a reader but loves facts /knowledge so I often get him books about things he's interested in like history and geography.
Dc1 is a reluctant reader due to dyslexia but he read and understood most of the gcse texts in comic form and passed gcse English literature. So books written in comic form for teens maybe an option.

Holes by Louis Sachar is good
My 12yo is currently engaged by Frank Cotrell-Boyce, reading 'Framed' currently
We've recently read together 'The boy who sailed an ocean in an armchair' and Terry Pratchetts 'The Carpet People'
I'd also recommend quite a few of the Eva Ibbotson books
And for something trickier, but engaging to read together 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' (and sequels) or 'The Box of Delights' (which is nicely xmassy)

Ds has loved all the books in this series - actually laugh out loud funny… (even I laughed, we’ve been reading some of them together) -

The Chicken Nugget Ambush (Roman Garstang Disasters) www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1848124848/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_DZR339449T7396KQ62CE?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

If he is into history:

Kevin Crossley-Holland: The Seething Stone (1st in an Arthur Trilogy)

A book to read to him - I would try “The 1,000 year old boy”. It’s such a lovely story and both of us enjoyed it.

Is he too old for BeastQuest or Dinosaur Cove?