"Reading" books, Y5, quite behind

[drspouse]

DS is 9 and in Y5 and his school (PRU) has started sending home books that he's supposed to read with us. We got this yesterday which is way too easy for him.
We have Reading Champions but the hardest one we have is also too easy.
He doesn't like Barrington Stoke (boring stories), Tom Gates, 13 Storey Treehouse, anything with too many words. He won't even let me read them to him.
He's read all the Dog Man and Bunny vs Monkey and the vocabulary is way above these school books.
What can we get that will satisfy school and him?

[drspouse]

The Phoenix is how we know about Bunny vs Monkey but he's not keen on the school based stories or the superhero ones so we just started getting the books instead.

[ginforall]

I know you might be trying to get away from comics but we've just subscribed to the phoenix magazine which my 8 year old is loving. It has a bunny v monkey new comic in every week.

[Phineyj]

Oh no!!!

[drspouse]

Sadly the Book People are no more!
I'll check those out; really not keen on Famous Five though!

[AttaGirrrrl]

If he likes outdoorsy things like Bear Grylls, would be like the Famous Five?

[Phineyj]

DD is Y4, can read reasonably well, ASD/PDA. Totally rejects idea of independent reading. I have to lie a lot 'oh I've forgotten my glasses, can you read these instructions' etc.

[Phineyj]

What about the Jack Beechwhistle books that Kes Gray has recently added to his 'Daisy and the trouble with...' series? They're very entertaining and quite dramatic so you could alternate reading as you've been doing.

DD has also developed an obsession with Geronimo Stilton this year. Poor DH has read her 3 x 10 sets. They have very few words in really.

Have you tried the Book People for offers?

[drspouse]

Those all look excellent!! I'll get looking at the library/eBay before investing masses.

[RuleWithAWoodenFoot]

Arthur and the Golden Rope - and other Joe Todd Stanton books.
The Marcia Williams comic type books telling the Shakespeare stories?

[drspouse]

Yes, he does prefer zany comics but he likes The Deep so that style of adventure might work.

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

Yep. And you don't have any choice of buying just one to see if the level is correct or it would interest him.

Is that the sort of thing that might interest him and roughly that amount of text on the page?

[drspouse]

He has not, the highest level might be about right, but they are pretty expensive!

[HarveySchlumpfenburger]

drspouse, has he read the catchup series from here?

[drspouse]

He has watched Captain Underpants but rejected the books so far but worth another try.

I doubt he'd go for the Tom Gates type thing one line at a time but ironically we were saying he might be persuaded to read something like Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe (which he HAS consented to me reading) especially if we share like that.
He likes fantasy but has good taste in children's books i.e. won't go for pot boilers like TV spinoff type things - he loves You vs Wild but we both read one page of a Bear Grylls book and gave up. So I suspect Dragonquest would also be a no.

[HSHorror]

Maybe captain underpants?
Would he alternate lines with you or pages etc so not too much in a go?

[drspouse]

The Reading Champions book. His sister (Y3, also a bit behind) would like this topic but not him.