Great Boy Books

I'm making a list of books we've enjoyed reading over the years. Some came straight out of the curriculum, others were stumbled upon at the library or recommended by friends. It became quite obvious to me, after buying entire sets of reading material from curriculum suppliers over several years, that some books are clear winners with boys, while others--not so much.

After reading Charlotte's Web aloud twice--once to Poly and once to Chee-Chee, and crying my heart out each time I got to the end, I was rather dismayed my boys did not share the same feelings I had for poor Charlotte. I guess sentimentality for spiders is just not a boy trait.

So here's a list of winners, in random order. The categories are rather arbitrary. Clearly some books fall into more than one category, but here's how I see them. I'll add other titles to the list as time goes on.

Humor (humor always wins with boys)
Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
Red Sails to Capri by Ann Weil
Homer Price by Robert McCloskey
Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank Gilbreth
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl, and other books by him
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Alice through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Animal
Kildee House by Rutherford Montgomery
The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden
Rascal by Sterling North
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

Adventure
The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pene du Bois
Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne
Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
The Trojan War by Olivia E. Coolidge
Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell

History/Historical Fiction
Johnny Tremain, Esther Forbes
Master Cornhill, Eloise Jarvis McGraw
Carry On, Mr. Bowditch, Jean Lee Latham
Walk the World's Rim, Betty Baker
The Dark Frigate, Charles Boardman Hawes
The Shakespeare Stealer, Gary Blackwood
Eagle of the Ninth, Rosemary Sutcliff
By the Great Horn Spoon, Sid Fleischman
Shadow Spinner by Susan Fletcher
The Samurai's Tale by Erik C. Haugaard
The Broken Blade by William Durbin

Fantasy
The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien
The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Trilogy of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
The Redwall Series by Brian Jacques
The Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling

Mystery
The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfeld