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pumpkinmom
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| Posted: May 16 2012 at 11:44pm | IP Logged
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I need some book ideas for my Ds 11. Lately he has been reading books with too much violence and I can really tell a change in his behavior in a bad way. (Maybe it is puberity and not the books, but I am going to blame the books.  ) He has been enjoying 39 clues, Hunger Games series, and a few other series that I can't stand to hear another narration about. (Why, do I get narration from these books, but nothing from books I have him read for school time??  ) Any ideas?
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Cassie
Homeschooling my little patch of Ds-14 and Ds-10
Tending the Pumpkin Patch
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: May 17 2012 at 7:39am | IP Logged
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Ime, that kind of reading is "easier" than reading more worthy titles. Not that there aren't worthy themes one can draw from such works, but one is drawn to read more by the suspense and the desire to know what happens next, and it can be hard to shift gears to different sort of work that unfolds more slowly where the interest is in character development or beautiful language.
I guess my point is that you might get some resistance. It might take some effort to retrain his attention span.
If you want a more worthy adventure story, you might assign for the summer at least one "classic" such as something by Robert Louis Stevenson. With this, I would probably divide it into bite sized pieces for him. Or perhaps if that is too much, get a recording of such a classic to sort of transition and whet the appetite.
Other lesser classics in this genre might be the Horatio Hornblower series.
If it is the intrigue he likes, perhaps directing him to a classic like Father Brown or Sherlock Holmes (I think that Hillside has a couple of adaptations of Father Brown mysteries for young readers, though I have not read those personally).
You might also direct him to some non-fiction adventure stories. Usborne has a "True Stories..." series that might appeal. There are also some saints histories that are rather adventurous. Or perhaps stories about military chaplains in war time? I find that my boys, my oldest especially, responds positively to stories of heroism, especially when he realizes that they really happened. I suppose here I am thinking of your comment that behavior is suffering, and reading about honorable men can be edifying.
Swallows and Amazons comes to mind as classic children's literature that has lots of adventure but also requires a bit more effort than the type of books you describe.
Ralph Moody's Little Britches series would also appeal to boys of that age. If you haven't read them, given that part of your issue is behavioral, I might start there. I find that they are just excellent in presenting opportunities and examples of good character in boys and men without being preachy at all or any moralizing. The whole first part of the series is excellent. I can't speak for the later books because our boys were very young when we first read them, and we stopped as he entered the late teenage years and young adulthood, but I would predict that they are good as well.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
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[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: May 17 2012 at 7:46am | IP Logged
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I like this list Literature of Honor for Boys a lot as well.
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Lindsay
Five Boys(6/04) (6/06) (9/08)(3/11),(7/13), and 1 girl (5/16)
My Symphony
[URL=http://mysymphonygarden.blogspot.com/]Lost in the Cosmos[/UR
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stellamaris
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| Posted: May 17 2012 at 8:09am | IP Logged
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Sounds like he needs to be challenged to read a wider variety of literature. Your difficulty is going to be weaning him off of these fast-paced and action-oriented books to others that are better written, more enriching, but less gripping. It's kind of like trying to cut out sugar . One thing we have done here is to have a reading challenge by genre. In fact, now that I'm thinking of it, maybe I'll set this up for the summer for my boys.
In the past, I have used a picture of something like a car or even had the children draw an imaginary map of "Book Land" with each section/area being a different genre. Some genres to use are: fantasy, historical fiction, mystery, humor, short story, adventure, biography, non-fiction, science fiction, nature, western, multi-cultural. You might think of others, too.
So, find or make a picture with sections they can color and then label each section with a genre. As they complete a book for each genre, they color in the corresponding section. When they finish the picture, they earn a special reward like a night of bowling or a trip to Pizza Hut.
Just a few book ideas totally off the top of my head for some of the genres (and there's a pretty wide range of reading ability represented here, too):
Fantasy:
Any of the Lord of the Rings books
Chronicles of Narnia
C.S. Lewis Space Trilogy: Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength
Redwall books
Biography:
Any saint biography,my 11 yr old ds especially enjoyed St Francis of the Seven Seas this year
George Washington's World
Any Landmark book
A Photobiography of Abraham Lincoln
The Story of My Life (Helen Keller)
Up from Slavery (Booker T. Washington)
The World's Most Daring Explorers: 38 Men Who Opened Up the World
Mystery:
The Westing Game
Hardy Boys
Short Stories:
American Tall Tales
The Ransom of Red Chief and others by O. Henry
Just So Stories by Kipling
The Necklace
The Lady or the Tiger?
Historical Fiction:
Song of the Pines
Swift Rivers
Adam of the Road
The Trumpeter of Krakow
Men of Iron (a bit harder to read)
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood (Howard Pyle or Roger Lancelyn Green)
King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table (Pyle or Green)
Any Landmark book would be great here, too
Man O' War (horse story)
Rifles for Watie
Number the Stars or The Winged Watchman
The Hiding Place
Adventure:
Red Sails to Capri
All Sail Set (clipper ship story)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
The Call of the Wild
Treasure Island
Captains Courageous
Around the World in Eighty Days
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Science Fiction:
Mad Scientists's Club (sort of mystery, short story, too)
A Wrinkle in Time
The Phantom Tollbooth (actually probably belongs under mystery)
The War of the Worlds
Nature:
Wild Animals I Have Known
Any of the Holling C. Holling books
Humor:
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Five Children and It
Western:
Sing Down the Moon
Of Courage Undaunted
Farmer Boy
Seven Alone (On to Oregon is the original title)
I would try to direct him to older books and really not encourage the fantasy/science fiction type of books. These can be a snare for young men. There are a few good books of this type, but overall the genre is very dark and has been taken over by pagan influences.
The books on the Newberry medal list written BEFORE about 1965 are a good starting place. Some of the newer books are problematic and you should pre-read those.
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Caroline
Wife to  dh 30+ yrs,ds's 83,85,89,dd's 91,95,ds's 01,01,02,grammy to 4
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stellamaris
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| Posted: May 17 2012 at 8:12am | IP Logged
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Cross-posting with you, Lindsay! Love this list of books...as you can see by the number of titles on this list I put in my own post!
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In Christ,
Caroline
Wife to dh 30+ yrs,ds's 83,85,89,dd's 91,95,ds's 01,01,02,grammy to 4
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pumpkinmom
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| Posted: May 17 2012 at 8:34am | IP Logged
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This is all great! Thank you all for taking the time to list so much good information and books!! I know it will be tough, but he will work for a reward. I like the different genres idea!
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Cassie
Homeschooling my little patch of Ds-14 and Ds-10
Tending the Pumpkin Patch
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SallyT
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| Posted: May 17 2012 at 10:49am | IP Logged
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Caroline's post is GREAT. Perfect list!
At that age, my now-14-year-old also loved books about the Battle of Lepanto, particularly one called Angels in Iron. It's apparently pretty full of battle and bloodshed, and my pacifist mother would remark that we were filling him full of "violence," but I really do believe that there's a difference between this kind of book and much contemporary fantasy-type fiction, in terms of underlying philosophy. In other words, there's violence and violence. It can be either nihilistic and dehumanizing at one end of the spectrum, or it can be self-sacrificial, in the cause of something larger than the self.
Obviously my goal is to fill my sons, who are going to be attracted to the idea of fighting on some level, with the imagery of the second kind -- that you engage in combat because you're willing to lay down your life for friends, country, civilization, faith . . . that human life is precious (including your own), and you only give it up when that's what you have to give. In much "old" literature for boys -- and notice how there aren't any series for boys any more, in the way that there are umpteen billion series marketed specifically for girls -- the idea of war is bound up in the idea of *nobility*, in a way that our culture tends to sneer at now. But that's precisely what's valuable about them.
I agree that an audiobook or family read-aloud of a Robert Louis Stevenson novel -- Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Black Arrow -- would be a great place to start. If you're going on a car trip anytime soon, that would be perfect, because you have literally a captive audience. Those are just great, gripping stories, though it may take a little while to transition into them if your kids aren't acclimated to this kind of literature. (that's why the captive-audience-in-car thing is so helpful!)
I would also especially second the Redwall books, which my older son loved at 10 or 11, and which my 9yo son loves now.
Those Usborne True Stories are pretty fun -- we have a number of them from the days when I used to sell Usborne -- and their retellings of things like the Trojan War aren't bad, either, as introductory reading. I vastly prefer Padraic Colum's The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tale of Troy as literature, but for an 11yo to pick up and read, something like the Usborne version is a good introduction to a pretty gripping tale. We have also liked the audiobook of Rosemary Sutcliff's Black Ships Before Troy. Her Eagle of the Ninth, an adventure story set in Roman Britain, is a classic and an enduring favorite of all my children as well.
Good luck! This is a good moment, with summer approaching, to work on feeding your son's mind with good things, while still satisfying his natural hunger for adventure and excitement and images of heroism.
Sally
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: May 17 2012 at 1:40pm | IP Logged
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SallyT wrote:
| Obviously my goal is to fill my sons, who are going to be attracted to the idea of fighting on some level, with the imagery of the second kind -- that you engage in combat because you're willing to lay down your life for friends, country, civilization, faith . . . that human life is precious (including your own), and you only give it up when that's what you have to give. In much "old" literature for boys -- and notice how there aren't any series for boys any more, in the way that there are umpteen billion series marketed specifically for girls -- the idea of war is bound up in the idea of *nobility*, in a way that our culture tends to sneer at now. But that's precisely what's valuable about them. |
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This excellent point also made me think about the book Shades of Gray by Carolyn Reeder. Set immediately after the Civil War, a boy who's lost his family goes to live with an uncle who refused to fight in the war. And the gradual realization of the boy that it takes as much courage not to fight for something you don't believe in as it does to fight for something you do believe in. Definantely makes you think about why you'd fight.
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Topic: Making a summer reading list!
