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Introduce Him to the Joy of Reading
Great Books for Preteen Boys By Teri Brown
What Boys LikeElizabeth Haydon is the author of a series called The Lost Journals of Ven Polypheme, which includes The Floating Island (Starscape, 2006). Haydon is passionate about encouraging preteens, especially boys, to read and says that part of getting them to read is choosing books with them in mind.
"Themes that are appreciated by boys this age are action, the more detailed the better, some sort of struggle, threat or fighting, particularly of the heroic sort whether it's epic or in the schoolyard suspense, puzzles, horror and humor, often of the crass kind," Haydon says. "Flatulence and other toilet jokes, as much as I hate to admit it, are very popular and intriguing to preteen boys, as evidenced in the success of books from Walter the Farting Dog (North Atlantic Books, 2001) and Captain Underpants (The Blue Sky Press, 2002) to David Lubar's Weenies books and Artemis Fowl, though that series contains a lot of violence that may be too intense for kids of this age. While it doesn't do much to contribute to polite society, my feeling is that anything interesting enough to get boys of this age to read happily and without pressure is a good objective, within reason, of course."
While your son might not be able to put into words the style of writing he enjoys most, chances are it's universal at this age. "Boys also appreciate books that are written very visually, where they can see the action easily in their own minds," Haydon says. "Concrete plots rather than abstract ones appeal more to them. I suggest that parents establish regular but limited reading times, usually at the end of the day rather than when a young boy is full of energy."