Yes, yes, yes! There’s so much good stuff out there that’s not fantasy. Encourage him to expand his horizons! The Great Brain is great stuff, as are most of the suggestions here.
I’ll throw in a book called “The Summer of the Monkeys”, which I must have read fifty times as a kid. I have no idea if it’s still in print, but I loved it.
I’d say if he loved Harry Potter, he’s already into fantasy to some extent.
+1 on the Hobbit.
If you want to go non-fantasy, you might consider My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. It’s got self-sufficiency and pet falcons and all kinds of really appealing stuff. It might be just the titchiest bit not beyond his reading level, but beyond his “I want to wander” level, depending.
Also +1 on any & all Roald Dahl. Now is a great time for James and the Giant Peach, the BFG, everything really.
I loved the Percy Jacksons - read them all as an adult and still read them compulsively as they come out. I’m quite certain he’ll enjoy them and third the consensus that they’re miles better than the movies.
Now is also an excellent time to get him into Egyptology (fictional & non-fictional) and archaeology generally - paleontology too if he’s not seized entirely yet by the dinosaur fascination that seems inherent to that age. Decent middle grade non-fiction on any of those things, as well as an excavate-your-own … kit might be well received. Something like this dinosaur encyclopedia, for example.
A fun fictional take on mummies & Egyptology is the Theodosia Throckmorton series beginning with Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos. I quite enjoyed it and I was in my 30s at the time - it’s got lovely spookiness and creeping around museums after dark when all those vaguely sinister artifacts can get up to mischief as you just KNOW they do when we’re not looking.
If your nephew loves adventure, he is also not too young to start Jules Verne, especially Around the World in 80 Days. I also loved William Pene Du Bois’ The Twenty-One Balloons at his age.
I do like the Pratchett recommendations but personally would start him with The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. No hint of bawdiness there and all the richness of Discworld.
I’ll second Narnia, Hobbit/LoTR, and His Dark Materials.
Please screen His Dark Materials first. It can be a bit more iffy in the content department, so do check to make sure it appears to be within his maturity level etc. Also be aware that one of its major themes is criticism of religion, especially organized religion. The movie version of the first book (The Golden Compass) watered down the content quite a bit. The books come out rather hostile to religion in general, but the movie limited the criticism more to organized religion and heavily utilized Catholic-type imagery.
If he likes adventure type stories, consider King Solomon’s Mines and Treasure Island, which are some of the prototypical 19th century “Adventure Novels” that are frequent subjects of homage and have been read by children for decades. It would be nice to be able to recognize references to them.
I highly, highly recommend the Artemis Fowl series - it’s about a young genius who discovers an underground world of fairies and immediatly tries to exploit them to restore his family fortune. I’d say they’re a bit difficult for a 7 year old, but if he got through Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, I think he’d love them. Plus, the characters are truly awesome - not at all like most of the lukewarm, one dimensional “good guy/ bad guy” stuff you find in so many children’s books.
You could also check out the Fablehaven series. While I don’t like them as much as the Fowl books, they’re still very good. Lastly, although a lot of the jokes in the Discworld books may pass him by, you could start him off with Pratchett’s children’s novels - the Johnny trilogy is excellent, and The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents is one of my all time favorite children’s books.
ETA: Actually, now that I think about it, I was only a bit older than him when I read my first Discworld (it was The Hogfather). I didn’t get most of it, but I still enjoyed it very much - plus, if he likes them, there are TONS.
My son loved the Hank the cow dog books. May be too simple for a 7 year old who can digest the Harry Potter books.
+1 on most Roald Dahl. He has some adult stuff.
One series - an old one - that my 8 year old greatly enjoys is the Great Brain series. It is children’s literature, but deals with some very hefty themes and is very well written - also very funny in places.
http://www.amazon.ca/The-Great-Brain-John-Fitzgerald/dp/0142400580
They are set in a small town in Utah around the turn of the 20th century; they revolve around the dealings of the narrator, an 8 year old, with his brother (the “great brain” of the title) and other children and adults in the town. It is difficult to describe what is so compelling about it - it is very immersive and by turns funny and moving.
My son just burned through a handful of Diary of Wimpy Kid books. They’re pretty quick reads and I do like the POV of the main character.
The Prydain Chronicles truly are worth reading–I freakin’ love them and recommend them very highly. Keep in mind that they’re significantly trickier, languagewise, than Harry Potter. I’ve read The Book of Three to a couple of classes of second-graders, and every page I have to change two or three words just to make it make sense, and that’s in addition to teaching how to use context clues to understand vocabulary. They’re wonderful, but may be a challenge.
I’m not a big Percy Jackson fan, only read the first one, but they’re not bad.
If you’re willing to consider some books that aren’t in series, here are two recommendations of authors:
Christopher Paul Curtis writes stories about African American families in the thirties through sixties, mostly. I’ve read three of his books, and while they don’t shy away from dealing with segregation and racism, Curtis’s wit and warmth is so strong that they don’t end up being total downers (I’m looking at you, Mildred Taylor). They’re really funny.
Kate DiCamillio is also fantastic; my favorite book by her is another fantasy, The Tale of Despereaux. The movie is an atrocity under investigation by the Hague, so ignore it; the book is funny and sweet and poetic.
Oh, and one more book turned into a movie (which I haven’t seen): Holes. It’s something of a mystery, with excellent characterization and a very intricate, fun plot.
The Myth Adventures series by Robert Asprin sounds like a good follow-up for a kid who’s read Harry Potter in its entirety.
Oh, man. I just got back from the bookstore. It’s been so long since I’ve been in a bookstore, that I didn’t realize how difficult it is now to get books at the last minute. I even checked online, and it said they had everything in stock, but when I got there, they didn’t have what I wanted and on top of that, they didn’t have any boxed collections of anything except HP.
There’s a bigger bookstore on the way to my nephew’s house. I’ll stop there tomorrow morning and see what I can find.
Something a little different from the rest of the excellent suggestions:
My 8 year old’s favorite books at the moment are the Bone series of graphic novels.
Those are, indeed, excellent. My kid loves 'em.
carl hiaasen has a y.r. line that is really good. environmental issues, interesting characters.
There’s only two books so far, but the “Timmy Failure” series by Stephan Pastis is geared for about your nephew’s age group.
So I’m gonna weigh in on Animorphs. I LOVED this series as a kid and I have all 30 some odd books. I was a good reader at that age too (and as I got older) and I could crank through an entire book in about an hour or two, but I loved the adventure, the characters and there are a TON of books and Spinoffs.
If I had the time/gumption/books-with-me-here-in-Charlotte I would totally reread them again now and I’m practically 30
That’s what I was going to say. I love the Ramona series.
Did you know that Beverly Cleary is still alive at 98?
If the subject of the OP hadn’t just finished all of Harry Potter, the Cleary books would have been my suggestion. My childhood reading progression went, as I recall, Haywood - Cleary - Blume - then more advanced stuff.
But as good as Cleary’s books are for most 7-year-olds, I think this one is beyond that already.
Perhaps they wouldn’t be challenging But I know that I re-read and enjoyed them years after they were “age-appropriate.”
My daughter LOVED the How to Train Your Dragon series. It’s 12 books in total, and she read them so many times they were disintegrating.
+1 on the Hobbit.
Also Discworld by Pratchett is safe for 7 year olds.