AIBU to wonder if there are any exciting books for 7yr old boys that aren't violent and about good vs evil?

[withinacceptabletolerances]

Ok not the best AIBU but I'm getting frustrated with my 7yr old autistic DS and the books available to him. He's an advanced reader, reading on his own for enjoyment. Great. But emotionally and socially he's v immature and regularly confuses fantasy and reality. All the books he chooses from the library or we try to buy him involve fighting, quests to defeat evil overlords or some other violence. So when he plays with friends or his brother, he lapses into these fantasy worlds and unsurprisingly starts being violent. So an example was pretending to be a beast from Beast Quest and intentionally scratching with his 'claws'. So aside from helping understand the difference between fantasy and reality, we clearly need better reading material. (We disciplined him for the scratching before anyone points that out).

Soooo I know I'm not BU, but can anyone recommend any exciting books for him that don't involve violence? He's read Beast Quest, How to Train your Dragon, various Ninjago/Star Wars books, Harry Potter 1&2(which were fine but no 3 is quite dark)..... Help mumsnet!

Jeremy Strong, Dick King Smith, Anne Fine, even Horrid Henry?

Famous Five
Secret Seven
The Magic Faraway Tree
The Borrowers
Any Roald Dahl books
The Narnia books
The Wind in the Willows

Enid b's enchanted Wood /magic faraway tree series
No 1 car spotter series by atinuke
Arabel's raven series
Mudpuddle farm by morpurgo
A mouse called wolf by dick King Smith

Bad Kitty books. They are so lovely and funny. My ASD kid (also 7)
A lot of the Michael Rosen books
The Smurf comics

Definitely the Treehouse books - my son has gobbled up the whole series! And is on his 3rd read of them he loves them so much!

Also, 'Charlie turns into...' series - 3 books by Sam Copeland

Hi OP my son who has ASD also struggled to differentiate between fantasy and reality, but he is 10 now and is getting much better at recognising what’s real and what’s fantasy so it might just be something you have to wait out for him to develop on his own.

In the meantime flash cards can be useful as visual reminders.

I’m going to go against the grain here-
If your son likes fantasy, goodies and baddies and battles then get him those books, there is nothing that will kill a kids interest in books than not being able to read what they like. By all means introduce new books but don’t take away the kinds of stories he is really into.

So my 7yr/yr2 old likes Timmy Failure, The Bolds, the x story treehouse, spy dogs/pups/cats, the owl who was afraid of the dark, zoes zoo rescue and the London zoo series, bear grills books.

Have a look at Jacqueline Wilson and Michael murpurgo - though beware both have quite an age range of books!

I would say diary of a wimpy kid was a bit advanced - dd read in Yr 5.

@Newpuppyplanning

Not Goodnight Mr. Tom! Child abuse and dead babies do not make good reading for 7 year olds!

Yes have to agree with this. This used to be a year 7 (age 11-12) book in one of the schools I taught in. It would drop to year 6 ok but certainly not to year 2. The description of him being found in the cupboard clutching his dead baby sister is harrowing.

My seven year old ASD boy struggles to read himself but loves books. We're working on the complete Famous Five and some Horrible Histories at the moment. We've also had the longer Dr Seuss stories - The Lorax and Horton hears a Who.
I think he would like The Jungle Book and others by Kipling. Thy Servant a Dog is still a favourite of mine, as are the Just So stories.

Nims island Wendy Orr

Truckers Terry Pratchett

The Dr Dolittle books if you can find them

The moomin books?

Green Knowe.. beautiful stuff!

Flat Stanley, The Little Ghost

My father's dragon is lovely - a quest but a very gentle and funny one. Zoey and Sassafras might work too, an interesting mix of fantasy and science.

There are lots of good Michael Morpurgo books for that age. He wrote for different age groups. If you google his name and age range, you should get a good list up. I really liked The Butterfly Lion but I never read a bad book of his. Also would recommend Eva Ibboston.

There are also some good Anthony Horowiz books for younger readers - The Switch, The Diamond Brothers series, Groosham Grange. My boys loved all of these.

My daughter loved Varjak Paw at that age, by SF Said. And Tom's Midnight Garden Also lots of Enid Blyton - the Faraway Tree and Wishing Chair books particularly.

If he is into fantasy, some of the older fantasy novels might work? The fantasy element is still there, but the pace is slower so it's more thoughtful fantasy, if you know what I mean. I'm thinking of things like The Weirdstone of Brisingamen or the Dark is Rising series (that one may be more age 9+ though).

Another vote for the Treehouse books here, sound ideal for him.

I have a similar issue with my ds (including ASD) think that Treehouse could be a bit easy for an advanced 7 year old. Also I'd stay away from David Walliams and Mr Gum, as they have a lot of 'comedy' rudeness that isn't good for children who imitate books.

Someone up thread mentioned Eva Ibbotson and my son has LOVED almost all of hers. There are also lots of good mystery series, often aimed at girls a bit, but fun to read and good on friendship - he likes the Mariella Mystery books, but there are plenty more.

My son's new favourite, that I would hugely recommend, is Bloom by Nicola Skinner and it's about girl who gets medical seeds with mad consequences - my son is normally all about Beast Quest and Walliams type stuff so I was very surprised to hear him laughing and laughing, he loved it and I liked it too, it's fun but with lovely and subtle messages about nature and being ok to be different.

medical seeds? Sounds dodgy I meant magical* seeds

Katherine Rundell is wonderful. Start with The Explorer (children survive a plane crash in the jungle; nothing gory or violent; adventurous and uplifting). Rooftoppers is also wonderful.

Anthony Horowitz The Falcons Malteser series is very good. Also second many of the other recommendations .

For a child reading these kind of books (Tom gates, butterfly lion, wimpy kid etc etc) what reading level would you expect them to be on?

Brian jacques are amazing perhaps too heavy goinf for a 7 year old but maybe something you could read together, I loved them from around -age 10/11last year in primary

Hannah sparks The Land of Stars series (they're kind of magical and about dragons and such, have just started and 7yo ds is hooked!) I also like the look of Tom Fletcher magical books but haven't looked in depth yet. Best of luck OP!

Ps I love this thread so thank you op as yes it's so difficult!!

Ok so fantasy but more using your imagination,
The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo
Pages and Co by Anna James
Castle Glower series by Jessica Day George (it has a magic castle)
We haven't read this for a while but I can't remember any violence, The Whizz Pop Chocolate Shop by Kate Saunders

Things the kids enjoyed during lockdown
The Questioneers series by Andrea Beaty (these have 2 versions their is a short picture style book and a longer chapter style book)
Wed Wabbit by Lissa Evans
The Iron Man by Ted Hughes
The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd followed by The Guggenheim Mystery by Robin Stevens (Siobhan Dowd died before she could write the second one)
The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy
Bedknobs and Broomsticks by Mary Norton
A Boy Called Christmas by Matt Haig

and not ones we have read but we do own
The Flying Fergus books by Chris Hoy
Malamander by Thomas Taylor

I am also going to point you here to the BBC Bitesize book club we have read a lot of them across various ages, they really liked To Be A Cat by Matt Haig - www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zf8djhv
and to National Shelf Service because I have come across quite a few really good books thanks to this - www.youtube.com/channel/UCPUIqlJM0aieXdq-LxKDvWA

My 6 year old loves the Mabel Jones book series and “embassy of the dead” series.(both written by Will Mabbitt)
She gets bagged and stolen through time by pirates after she does the Deed (picking her nose and eating it) it’s fun, a bit gross, has a good vocabulary (some of the words are written phonetically which makes her feel clever that she knows they are wrong), it’s just scary enough it has loads of suspense.

We read them to counteract all of the bloody rainbow magic books she’s sent home from school. (They are the mills and booms of the primary school set)