Boys books 7 year olds

[yesokthen]

Struggling to engage my son with reading. He can read fine just not interested in reading each day. All the books I pick up aimed at his age range - horrid Henry, David Williams, diary of a wimpy kid etc seem to long and silly for him. What would you recommend? He's 7.

@Fairtatas

cariadlet

The Beast Quest books look awful to me; the male equivalent of the Rainbow Fairy Magic books but when I taught year 3, I had several boys in my class who were obsessed with them.

They may not be great literature but they ignited a love of reading. At 11 he now reads a variety of books and often reads for pleasure.

Sorry, my message was badly worded. I think they're complete rubbish but as I'd taught boys who were obsessed with them, I was trying to recommend them for a reluctant reader.

I have a dd who (despite being surrounded by books and loving being read to from when she was a baby) was very reluctant to read herself. Any book that she did show an interest in, no matter how poor I thought the writing was (eg Horrid Henry, Rainbow Fairy Magic, David Walliams) I would encourage her to read and would buy more books by that author.

I'm a firm believer in trying anything that might work to try and spark the love of reading.

Ds is 7 and in the last 12 months I remember him enjoying reading these books.
Famous five books.
Philip Pullman Four Tales.
The girl who drank the moon by Kelly barnhill.
The boy who made the world disappear.
The tree house books.
Aquila magazine.
The unadoptables by Hana Tooke
The wizards of once by cowell
The endling series - Katherine Applegate - you may want to read first, it was a school reading book and I didn’t read it but I remember him mentioning a bit which surprised me.
Malory towers series was a surprise hit.
Also chronicles of narnia series.
There’s a common theme of adventure stories really.

Also there are some good comic book style like Hilda and the troll.

Just to add - Definitely don’t focus on ‘boys’ books. I think those fairy books and An Owl called Plop were what got him into enjoying reading alone!

Sorry the owl who was afraid of the dark!

The Dinosaur Cove books were a hit for us.

The Wigglesbottom Primary books are also good fun.

Have you been to the library and/or bookshop and let him browse? I agree that you need to not focus on boys books but just look at books in general and see what he picks up (particularly if he doesn't like silly as most of the books marketed specifically at boys this age are!)

My 7yo still likes to read picture books and that is very normal, if that's still where he's at, go with that.

For longer books you could try:
Flat Stanley series
The Dragonsitters series
Sam Wu is not afraid of the dark
Mr. P series

Oh, Michael Rosen might appeal as well. Fluff the farting fish is very funny.

The Rainbow Magic fairy books can be painful to plough through as grown ups because they are so formulaic, but that predictability can be reassuring. My children both clung to them for a while because of the absolutely certainty that there would be mild peril which would be tidily resolved. We’d had a couple of bereavements in close succession and they just needed books they could trust wouldn’t make them feel like that.
It can be hard to predict which books will fill the specific combination of needs of each child, but the bigger the range of books they have access to, the better the chance of success will be. It’s why libraries are so important.

The Boy Who Grew Dragons series is good, the books are not too long so for a child struggling to make the leap to longer books they are great.

Julius Zebra is brilliant too, longer but with lots of cartoons to break it up.

Charlie Changes into a Chicken series is fun too.

Or shorter stuff like Amelia Fang is good.

Ultimately it doesn't matter if he will only read short stuff or silly stuff for a while, it is all reading. If he enjoys reading then at some point a longer book will capture his imagination and he'll be off. If he feels pressure to read longer stuff or feels like he's being told the short, silly books he wants to read are too babyish then he'll be put off.

My son was a reluctant reader but now have him reading an hour a night. His favourite books are Treehouse series, Tom Gates, Minecraft Wordsworth series, Minecraft guide books, David Wailliams 'Worlds Worst...' (lots of short stories)

Would recommend getting a range to try from the library and see what interests him. Ive bought many books he has barely touched....Diary of A Wimpy was one of them.

Harley Hitch
Jack Stalwart series
Agent Asha
The boy who grew dragons

The Notebook of Doom series turned my 6 year old into a book lover. I cant recommend it enough.

The Time Hunters series (cant remember the author. The main characters are Tom and Isis).

The cycling series by Chris Hoy. First one is called Flying Fergus.

How to Train Your Dragon books.

Frogspell series.

The Boy who Grew a Dinosaur.

Captain Underpant series.

Oh that's it!
The Boy Who Grew Dragons! Not dinosaurs. So sorry!!

David O'Docherty's books are very good - there's a trilogy that starts with Danger is Everywhere, and he's just brought one out called The Summer I Robbed a Bank!

My 7yo is the same, can’t get into reading, but he does like me to read to him, it seems to help as he can’t get into the ‘imagining’ bit of it. He also dislikes silly stuff. We recently read The Butterfly Lion which he liked.

Are there any tv shows your son likes? My son will read/listen to the pokemon books because he loves the programme. They’re total trash but he will let least read them! Lots of kids films/shows have book tie ins.