I always give my nieces and nephews books for Christmas, but I’m sort of at a loss about what to give them this year.
5 little boys, ages 11, 6, 6, 3, and a newborn.
Suggestions, please?
Jack London for the 11-year-old … Call of the Wild or White Fang
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This is more opinion than factual, so let’s move it to IMHO (from GQ).
I’d say for the 3 year old, the books like “I’m Stinky!” and “I’m Dirty” by Kate and Jim McMullan should be runaway hits. They have books in that vein about trash trucks (“I’m Stinky!”), fire trucks (“I’m Brave!”), tugboats (“I’m Mighty!”), backhoes(“I’m Dirty”), dinosaurs (“I’m Big!” and I’m Bad!"), trains (“I’m Fast!”).
Pretty much anything by Sandra Boynton should also be good for a 3 year old as well.
For a newborn, I’d say that pretty much all Karen Katz books should be good as they grow up a little bit.
Not sure about 6 and 11 year olds; my boys are 2.5 and 5.
To which I would add Jamberry, by Bruce Degen.
The first books I read my son were Dr. Suess. Babies love the sound of rhyme and rhythm, and the pictures have colors that are eye-catching. The only real problem is that the family may have a lot of Dr. Suess, if they are big readers.
How mature is the 11-year-old? I started reading non-fiction a lot around that age. When I was 12, I was babysitting, and discovered Stephen Jay Gould on the bookshelves of some parents, after the kids were in bed. You might find out if he has a specific interest that you could find a book about. A specific book for the age that is spell-binding, and that he probably hasn’t read, because it’s from the 1970s, but it’s a Newberry winner (unusual in that it has a happy ending, and no animals die), and is still very relevant with fascinating characters is The Westing Game. It was one of my favorites, that I must have read 10 or 12 times between age 10 & 14, in spite of it being a mystery.
When my son was about 3, he adored a Caldecott winner called Go Away, Big Green Monster!
About age 10 I was introduced to the juveniles of Robert Heinlein. It’s not too much to say it changed the course of my life.
The 11 year old and one 6 year old are in Christian school and the others are home schooled. I don’t really know what their interests are, or what they’re being taught, but I do know the 11 year old really likes school.
So, no Stephen Jay Gould.
For the 11 year-old, ‘A Wrinkle In Time’; the full series can be found easily, but if it’s too advanced for him it would be an intimidating thing to have sitting on the shelf.
For the two 6 year olds, the Little House on Prairie boxed set would be great; they can both read different books but w/ many similarities and several are chapter books for those readers new to them. Several years ago I asked for that series for Xmas and Tripler got them weeks before; he couldn’t resist flipping through and was intrigued.
‘How come nobody gave me these when I was a kid?’, he asked.
‘B/c you’re a boy.’, I said.
‘I would have loved these!’, he insisted. That made me think a lot about the unconscious sexism many of us practice in things like this, where we reinforce gender roles needlessly. So yes, both of my recommendations have strong girl leads, but the fact that they’re female is practically immaterial to the stories.
The Dangerous Book For Boys (Conn & Hal Iggulden)
Swallows and Amazons (Arthur Ransome)
I’m saving Dangerous Book for when he turns 12.
Nothing for the newborn.
Dr. Seuss or Richarrd Scarry for the 3 year old – possibly for the 6 year olds as well, depending on the level of maturity.
Enid Blyton for the 6 and 11 year olds – she wrote for different age groups. For the 6 year olds, you could try the children’s editions of various classics – Black Beauty (by Anna Sewell), Wind in the Willows (by Kenneth Graham), among others.
For the 11 year old, there’s a much wider range, depending on taste – the Hardy Boy stories, possibly the Encyclopedia Brown series by Donald Sobol, the Harry Potter series, the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer, the Narnia stories by CS Lewis. Plus classics like Oliver Twist, the Dr. Doolittle stories, PG Wodehouse’s school stories, Grimm’s fairy tales, and children’s versions of Robin Hood, Greek mythology and so on. The list is practically endless!
Newborn: Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, by Mem Fox (link goes to a video of it being read). It’s a lovely read-aloud, and really you’re buying for the parents at this point.
Three-year-old: Sandra Boynton is great, but it depends on the kid. My own 3yo wants anything as long as it has pictures. The Tale of Custard the Dragon is an illustrated book of an Ogden Nash poem and is super-fun both to read and to listen to. You can find the text online.
6yo: can they read yet? An unusual choice might be Journey, a book with no words but a beautiful story (Caldecott honor, if that means anything to you). For the other one, get The Book With No Pictures by BJ Novak, a very very silly read-aloud.
11-year-old? It’s tricky to buy for this age without knowing interests. The Percy Jackson books are popular, but if the kid is an avid reader, he’s probably already read them. One option would be a reference book like D’aulaire’s Greek Myths, although even that one might be too young for him.
I think this fits better (and may get better suggestions) in Cafe Society. Relocated from IMHO.
How about the Percy Jackson series for the 11 year-old?
I don’t know much about books for the under 10 set, so I’ll concentrate on the 11 year old:
Thirding the Percy Jackson books, though if the family is hardcore religious, they may object. I’ve run into some weird proscriptions among some of my family, though Percy Jackson passed muster.
Depending on how big a reader he is, he may have already encountered lots of these (* = Fantasy or magic or other gods elements)
Jim Kjelgaard’s dog books. Stormy, Big Red, etc. Boy protagonists, action and drama, and real heart.
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Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain books, starting with The Book of Three. A great Welsh mythology inspired fantasy series that is perfect for an 11 year old boy.
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The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, by Alan Garner.
Homecoming, by Cynthia Voigt, the first book in the Tillerman cycle. This is a great series of books about kids who are dealing with abandonment and poverty. It’s not as dire as that sounds! The main character is a very strong girl, but she definitely shares the screen with her two brothers and one sister.
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Charmed Life, by Diana Wynne Jones, the first book in the Chrestomanci series.
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Skulduggery Pleasant, by Derek Landy, if he’s more tolerant of scares.
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Revenge of the Witch, by Joseph Delaney. Also requires tolerance of scares.
The Narnia books. They are fantasy, but Christian fantasy.
Bud, Not Buddy, by Christopher Paul Curtis.
The City of Ember, by Jeanne DuPrau. Not fantasy, but a dystopian future.
- The Amulet of Samarkand, by Jonathan Stroud. Very solid fantasy series, though the main characters are both unlikable.
Down the Rabbit Hole, by Peter Abraham. Mystery novel starring a 13 year old.
My boys love/loved that one as well- it’s a very interactive sort of book, where they make the monster go away by telling his various parts to go away as you flip through the pages.
When my boys were babies/toddlers, we and they really liked a couple of books by Harriet Ziefert and Simms Taback:
Who Said Moo?
Where Is My Baby?
Both are lift-the-flap books, illustrated with bright colors and cute (but not cloyingly so) drawings.
For the 3 to 6 set, I’d suggest Time of Wonder. It won a Caldecott Medal for its fantastic watercolor artwork when it was published in the late 1950’s, and the language is beautifully poetic. It recounts an innocent summer in Maine, exploring nature and experiencing life on a small coastal island. The children depicted are girls, but they’re never named or even referred to as such, and I never noticed it as a boy when my mother read this book to us. (I’m also of the view that boys reading books about girl characters is a good thing.)
And, Richard Scarry. Anything, really. Many of his books are decades old but still in print. Kids like them for the bright colors and cute (also not cloyingly so) cheerful animal characters, but what I’ve found as an adult is they are also FUNNY. There’s a lot going on in the drawings, and sometimes the text, that children may not notice or think anything of but that are really entertaining for adults.
Beverly Cleary’s books about Henry and Ribsy (and Beatrice and Ramona) should be popular with the whole lot, I’d think. 8-12 years, on average.
Here’s another vote for Encycolpedia Brown!
I gave my 9yo neice the Daulaire’s Books of Greek and Norse myths last year, and also their Book of Trolls -
I want her to have a classical education and there’s nothing like an illustrated book of Trolls to attract their interest.
Terry Pratchett’s children series, Tiffany Aching, is an excellent choice if you kids are made of sterner stuff. Tiffany is 9 and the books are appropriate for that age.
John Bellairs books about Lewis Barnavalt and his wizard Uncle Jonathon scared the snot out of me when I was little, if they like that sort of thing. Amazon says 8-12 years.
When the kids hit their teens - try the Horatio Hornblower books.
ETA: Still can resist thumbing through a Richard Scary book