That’s just about the perfect age for Ender’s Game by Orson Scot Card.
For something off the beaten track I adore The City of Ember by Jeanne Duprau. Apparently its being made into a movie of the same name for sometime in in 2008. Note: the sequels do not even approach the first novel, I could take or leave them, but mostly leave them.
I strongly recommend the The Giver as suggested by WhyNot upthread. Another one is Gerald Durell’s “Battle for Cockatrice Castle”. I read it originally as “The Talking Parcel” ( :rolleyes: to the name change). Awesome awesome book that doesn’t get enough play.
Growing up I was always taking these books out from the library-culture specific myth/folklore/fairytale books. I don’t know who wrote them/published them…I was a kid in the 8os and these looked old back then. But it was a series (they were chapter books incidentally) and they were great. I went through Native America, Russia, China, Greek & Roman etc… Fantasy is awesome but you might give him an age appropriate folktales/myths book. I’m sure someone at a bookstore could recommend a good one.
Oh, and here’s the link to the Gerald Durell book
Eragon is pretty popular with that set. Haven’t read it myself.
Get him going on the David Eddings books. He’s always a fun read at that age. I notice some people have suggested some to you. 
Its horrible. Do me a personal favor and don’t.
Boreragon.
I still don’t know how that book got published. Was there an orgy and a dead hooker involved? Where have the bodies been hidden and who knows what?
it’s THAT terrible.
If you want something brand-new that he’s not likely to have read yet, Brandon Sanderson just came out with Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians, a fun YA fantasy adventure. It’s not Great Literature, but it’s better and more original than a lot of the fantasy dreck currently being published.
Another lesser-known good YA read is the Hungry City Chronicles by Philip Reeve.
Not quite as good but still pretty good is the Ember trilogy by Jeanne DuPrau. They should all be out in paperback by now, so that might make a good gift set.
Many of the above authors are better, though; Diane Duane and Diana Wynne Jones, Lloyd Alexander and Susan Cooper are all more classic. But he’s also more likely to have read them, so these are some lesser-known good ones.
This would be my number one recommendation.
While it’s not exactly the same sort of fantasy as many of the others mentioned, there’s a good chance he’d enjoy Watership Down.
The Enchanted Forest chronicles by Patricia Wrede are a fun light read, though I’d feel slightly more comfortable recommending them to a girl than to a boy.
And, yeah, Piers Anthony’s Xanth books aren’t a bad suggestion provided you stick with the earliest ones forgoodnesssake.
I’ll throw another vote behind David Eddings. Just for something diffrent I’ll thow out R.A. Salvadore’s Drizzt books starting with the Icewinddale trillogy. Although I started reading Robert Jordan at that age and Eye of the World is a great book.
*Eragon * is terrible. I keep trying to read Eldest, which I’ve heard is better.
Has anyone mentioned the John Christopher tripod books yet? Or his other trilogy?
I’m not sure if this will fly, since the OP turned down Spiderwick, but I can’t recommend The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and iChris Riddell highly enough. Madly inventive, just enough darkness, great setting, wonderful illustrations. They Rock! Can’t believe it seems no-one else has read them.
Ditto. Plus, Bartimaeus would totally be a Doper if he were real.
Wow. Thanks so much for all the ideas so far. Totally didn’t expect so much help!
I haven’t made a decision yet (though, some of these are actually sounding good to me), but I did want to add that if his parents weren’t uber-Christian, His Dark Materials would be the first thing I grabbed. I absolutely love the first book (haven’t gotten to the next two yet), but his parents would have a FIT if I even suggested it for him. They’re very aware of anything even rumored to be anti-Christian (it took them YEARS to cave in and let him read HP, because they thought it promoted witchcraft), and since the rumors are actually true this time, there’s no way they’d let him read it.
Also wanted to mention that I’d love to get him Ender’s Game (another book I loved), but it’s way too violent for his parents to be OK with. I think there’s a bit of cursing, too, but I could be remembering incorrectly.
Would anyone be willing to expound further on A Wrinkle in Time? What is the storyline of the first book, and what made it such a classic?
re - A Wrinkle in Time - I bet another Doper will come along with a better summary but here’s the thing - I had a teacher who read it to us in elementary school & I never forgot it. Very powerful. Here goes my summary - Insecure teen Meg (?) Murry’s scientist father goes missing. She and her genius little brother travel the galaxy to save with the help of some eccentric witches. They travel by using what they call tesseracts, or wrinkles in time. Only by learning the power of love can the father & brother be saved from a horrible fate - which sounds corny but when its well written, it isn’t.
Er, well, guess that rules out Bukowski as my first suggestion…
These are a bit old but still have life in them, and shouldn’t be too hard to find:
L. Sprague de Camp/Fletcher Pratt: Land of Unreason and The Incomplete Enchanter
Clifford Simak’s The Goblin Reservation is SF but with fantasy elements, and quite enjoyable
Lord Dunsany’s The King of Elfland’s Daughter is harder to find but has good lyrical moments, though there is some mild anti-clerical sentiment. In fact anything by Lord Dunsany might, on the surface, gain his parents approval.
Or, you might get him some of the fantasies of James Branch Cabell…they were written in the 1920’s, so you can be sure there’s nothing in them to upset his parents… 
Another vote for Dark is Rising. If they accepted Harry Potter, getting them to accept Dark is Rising should be a relative cinch. Still, although there’s a sheen of Christian values throughout the books – the first book takes place around Christmas, which features prominently in the plot – it deals significantly more with British mythology and what uber-Christians might term paganism.
There is some violence, but no more than the Harry Potter series. It’s written for youths, so there’s very little adult material in the series.
Take a look at this thread discussing the book!
The Diane Duane Young Wizard books really treat magic as an unexplained technology–no covens, master witches, dark sabaths, mainstream religion-bashing, funny hats, etc. They are about doing good acts on behalf of others. They are very moral in a non-preachy way.
Stasheef is pretty safe, as is Zelazny’s works…
Good lyrical moments, indeed, but hardly “irresistibly exciting.” If you must give him a Dunsany, I’d imagine a boy his age would be more likely to appreciate The Charwoman’s Shadow, or some of the shorter works.