[QUOTE=simster]
I personally enjoyed TailChaser Song by Tad Williams as well - never started the other series.
[/QUOTE]
Although I enjoyed this book too, it is pretty dark and gruesome later on, and the themes in it are dark. I think it might be too adult for an 11-12 year old whose parents are watching violence content. ETA: Grueseome isn’t exactly the word I was looking for, but when the scene with the huge, bloated fat cat lying on a mound of dead and dying cats and langourously being fed them comes along, it’s not gentle, and I don’t think the parents would approve it.
Don’t worry about whether someone is too old for particular series. I read all the books I mentioned in my post as an adult except for the Alice books, and those are perhaps the most difficult of the ones I’m recommending. By the time someone is 11- or 12-years-old, any book that they would like are books that an adult will like too.
appleciders writes:
> Daniel Pinkwater is just right for that age, and he’s really underrated.
I’m not sure if Pinkwater is underrated. He’s well known and highly rated among experts on children’s literature. He sells well if not on a Harry Potter level. He just doesn’t have the kind of super-popularity he should have.
My daughter, who is 11, also loved the Gregor books. She (and most of her friends) are now reading a series called “Warriors” by Erin Hunter. It is a fantasy series about a society of wild cats. There are different clans of cats who battle each other, etc. I’m not absolutely sure if the series would appeal to boys, since I haven’t read them, but it certainly appeals to girls. They even call each other over the phone and plan which scenes they are going to act out at recess.
[QUOTE=simster]
Zelazny - Amber Series, Jack of Shadows, Changeling, Madwand - all good…
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Very good, but the occasional short & mild sex/nude scene might freak out prissy parents. And he might be hard going, depending on how good a reader the kid is.
[QUOTE=Tamex]
I talked to my daughter, and she says that boys are reading the “Warriors” books, too. They seem to be quite popular.
[/QUOTE]
I found the first pretty girly, but I may be overinterpreting based on the gushy recommendation from a girl. The protagonist cat is male. The insult “kittypet” (which I call my partner when I go out in the rain for firewood and she stays inside) is second only to “cakesniffer” from Snicket.
Are the Snarkout Boys books even in print any more? What about Alan Mendelsohn? Those are my favorites. I have them all, in ancient falling-apart paperbacks.
Actually, Pinkwater’s new book, The Neddiad, is pretty good. His last couple have been really repetitive and disappointing, but I enjoyed the new one quite a bit.
[QUOTE=Shirley Ujest]
I am going to change gear here and offer three distinctly different areas:
Asterix is a wonderful 50+ year old comic series that is very rarely heard of here in the States, AFAIK.
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That’s a great recommendation. Asterix, Obelix, and the gang are a lot of fun. (The father of one of my childhood friends was in the Foreign Service, stationed in Belgium for several years, and my friend grew up reading the Asterix comics in French. Me, I settle for the English translations.)
[QUOTE=Omniscient]
[off topic]The over protectiveness of these parents turns my stomach, I almost feel like you’re morally required to get him something they won’t approve of.[/off topic]
[/QUOTE]
Mmmm, Aztec.
In a more serious vein, it’s hard to go wrong with the swords and sorcery, or swords and technology, and twisted sense of humor, of Simon Green. Blue Moon Rising is the book I wish I had read at his age(you could usually find me in the biography section of the library during that point in my life). Barring that, The Princess Bride by William Goldman would be a good one as well.
if you want to branch out to any must-have collectors dvd’s I would definately recommend The Labrynth as well as The Dark Crystal (which has a really nice collector’s edition). He’s the perfect age for them.
