Over 10 Books for Boys 11+

“Books crowbar the world open for you.”

Rooftoppers, Katherine Rundell

As our children and teens grow up, their values and vision are forever being moulded. Reading, as we all know, plays such an integral part in their lives, “crowbarring the world open” to them. But with 1000s of books to choose from, and our busy lives pulling us in every direction, it’s more important than ever that we take some time to keep our youngsters reading. It might be a trip with them to a library or bookshop, browsing the bookshelves at home, encouraging them along to their school library, or buying them a book for Christmas.

My three children all choose their books differently and enjoy very different books. My daughter (13) enjoys browsing in a bookshop with a birthday gift voucher and picking out one precious book. My other daughter (7) is still developing her reading fluency, but she simply loves to read (or just hold) what her friends are reading. However, my son (11) devours books so quickly that he struggles with the reflective selection of just 1 book. To keep up with his reading, I confess that I spend hours online reading book reviews and then order the ones I think he’d enjoy from our local library, which I visit once a week with a strong rucksack to empty and refill. He doesn’t always read them all, but from the pile he might discover the first book in a series he enjoys, and I can then order the rest. Of course, he could go to his school library, and no doubt he will in due course, but at the moment football understandably wins over the library at break time.

For those of you on the hunt for books, here are some of my son’s favourites from the last few months, and many are the first in a series.