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Book Recommendations for 12 year old boy

post #1 of 23
5/25/10 at 8:20pm
Thread Starter 
Something that has action, murder mysteries, humor, romance (aka "sexy time"), etc. PG-13 though.
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post #2 of 23
5/25/10 at 9:54pm
Piers Anthony's Xanth novels, for sure! They're racy-ish, fantasy-based books that are pretty funny. Some might object to them for the young teens, but they're firmly PG-13, and there's like a zillion of them now.

His Incarnations of Immortality series is great, too, though a bit more mature than the Xanth books. They're a little closer to R rated.

For real grown-up books, I used to like Lawrence Sanders' Archy McNally (playboy lawyer) books at 11-13 (though I read a lot of age-inappropriate stuff.) Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer Books are a lot of good fun (very noir crime books.)
post #3 of 23
5/26/10 at 9:42am
Percy Jackson and the Olympians is a series of 5 books.
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/r/...ning-thief.htm
The Lightning Thief is the first. My DS 12 loves them!
post #4 of 23
5/27/10 at 8:44pm
Thread Starter 
Thank you for the recommendations! I will get a hold of those for him. He's an avid reader, so please keep the suggestions coming.
post #5 of 23
5/27/10 at 9:08pm
I'm a teen librarian so I am burning to answer this question.

I second the Percy Jackson series. It is a huge hit with middle school boys. Also a huge hit are: Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz (think James Bond for 7th grade boys) as well as his Diamond Brother mystery series. He also writes horror. Another huge hit for boys, girls and adults is The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. The protagonist is female but it's never seemed to bother any of the boys who have read it. I booktalked it at the middle school and had a lot of requests for it. It's a dystopic science fiction novel about a girl who is forced to compete in a reality show/competition that is to the death. It's incredible and recommended for ages 12 and up. There is a second book in that series and a third one finishing up the trilogy due out in August. It's a very popular series.

Also big hits are most books by Eoin Colfer, Philip Reeve (science fiction and steampunk), Neil Gaiman and Pete Hautman (he writes mysteries). For sports fiction try Mike Lupica and Tim Green.

Michael Scott's The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel (fantasy), HIVE (The Higher Institute of Villaneous Education) by Mark Walden, Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld are also big hits.

If you want more recs or a specific recommendation, pm me.
I love to talk about this stuff.
post #6 of 23
5/28/10 at 6:20am
My 12 year-old boy is very fond of the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz. Sort of James Bond-ish for pre-teens and teens. My son LOVES them, although they leave me pretty cold.

http://www.anthonyhorowitz.com/

If you're in the USA you can see his stuff here:
http://www.anthonyhorowitz.com/shop/usa.html

I suppose they're also available on amazon.

The Bartimaeus trilogy is also great, first book is The Amulet of Samarkand
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amulet_of_Samarkand

Also James Patterson "Maximum Ride" series
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_P...n#Maximum_Ride


Also, both my kids (girl 14; boy 12) are getting into Terry Pratchett's Disc World series - mostly the books that involve Sam Vimes and the City Watch
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_world#The_City_Watch

The ones with Rincewind are not so good (IMHO).

The ones that feature Susan and her grandfather, Death are also pretty good (Soul Music, The Hogfather, & Thief of Time)
post #7 of 23
5/29/10 at 10:27pm
- Harry Potter series, if he hasn't read them
- the "ink" books by Cornelia Funke (Ink Heart, Ink Blood, Ink Death - I hope the translations were correct, I'm German and thus more familiar with the original titles.)
- The Chronicles of Narnia
- "A week in the woods"
- "Holes"
post #8 of 23
6/1/10 at 2:26pm
Thread Starter 
Thank you! These recommendations are so helpful. He has read the Potter, Ink, and Narnia, but everything else will be new. I'll let you all know what he thinks of them.
post #9 of 23
6/9/10 at 9:53pm
Def. the Percy Jackson series if he hasn't read them yet!
post #10 of 23
6/9/10 at 9:57pm
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, last year's Newbery.
post #11 of 23
6/10/10 at 9:15am
Robert Muchamore's Cherub series have been a bit hit with my 13 year old also the Maximum Ride books by James Patterson. Darren Shan also has one or two series with quite a lot of books in them and he has really enjoyed, them another author he enjoys is Steven Feasy. He reads at quite a high level so Dick Francis books appeal to him.

Check with your local library they are very helpful at suggesting books.
post #12 of 23
6/10/10 at 9:33am

Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

We've been enjoying this series by Michelle Paver. It is a series about a pre-historic boy (Torak). It has a little of everything you are looking for except perhaps "sexy-time". It has the hints of Romance but nothing particularly sexual.
post #13 of 23
6/10/10 at 9:20pm
Thread Starter 
Thank you! He is loving them so far. Keep them coming -- I'm sure there are plenty of other kids benefiting from this thread too.
post #14 of 23
6/17/10 at 1:12am
He might like the Hunger Games and the sequel, Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins. They are kind of dark futuristic reality TV. The main characters is a teen who is living in a very oppressive society and winds up in this "game" where a bunch of teens have to fight to the death on live TV for the entertainment of the capitol audience. It sounds gory, but they are well written and definitely geared toward teens so not truly terribly gory.

In re to the Piers Anthony books someone mentioned earlier, I tried to get dd11 to read the Xanth novels a while back b/c she likes sci fi. She immediately went for the Incarnations of Immortality series b/c it sounded better to her. She liked it a lot until she got to For Love of Evil at which point she felt that the content was too mature for her. It includes some rape scenes as I recall her saying and a few other sexual violence descriptions that probably weren't appropriate. Even the first book in that series, as mentioned, is probably "R" rated in that it has a suicide and an allusion to incest.
post #15 of 23
6/17/10 at 4:01pm
Seconding and thirding the Percy Jackson series and the Torak series -- we loved them! Also, the same author the Percy Jackson series has a new one out -- The Red Pyramid. DS picked it up and pretty much never put it down.

DS also loves most of the Anne McCauffry Pern books. These can get a little racy if you can read between the lines but nothing overt. We found the Dragon Singer/Dragon Song/Dragon Drums series was a great starting place.
post #16 of 23
6/17/10 at 5:13pm
How about some classic adventure?

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle

Neil Gaiman is a great choice - Neverwhere has adventure, mystery, humour. It's a little adult, but not R-rated.

Ken Oppel's trilogy - Airbor, Skybreaker and Starclimber
post #17 of 23
6/18/10 at 6:12am

older books we love

Jean Craighead George, Rosemary Sutcliff and Scott O'Dell have many books we have enjoyed, in a variety of lengths. These are older, and many titles feature early to mid teen boys in adventures of all kinds.

My Side to the Mountain, The Other Side of the Mountain and Frightful's Mountain, Going to the Sun, and Who Really Killed Cock Robin? by George

Sword Song, The Shining Company, Frontier Wolf, The Eagle of the Ninth series and others by Sutcliff - historical ACTION fiction with male protaganist who develop physically and mentally throughout the story.

The Black Pearl, The 290, The King's Fifth and many others by O'dell

Happy Reading,
Milo
post #18 of 23
6/18/10 at 5:27pm
I'm always looking for non-fantasy non-animal (no dog stories) oriented stuff. Ds does not like adventure themes either. Ds likes first person real kind of accounts that are very funny and perhaps edgy. His favorite tv show is The Office. He likes quick fast humor. He is 14--any idea's?
post #19 of 23
6/18/10 at 8:23pm
Thread Starter 
This is to Heartmama:

I'm thinking he would really like Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. Give it a try and let me know what he thinks. I'll re-post if any others come to mind. It's for adults but I can't recall anything that would be too much for a 14 year old.
post #20 of 23
6/26/10 at 3:48pm
Has he read anything by Chris Crutcher?

I have also just finished book three of the Kindom Keepers (the kingdom being disney world). They are great adventure stories. If you hate everything disney, you might not want to read about it, but the action is great. It was rec. to me by a 12 year old boy so I read book one thinking "ok, I'll read it for him" and was hooked.

Amy
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