I'm not sure I have anything in mind for someone as young as Duncan, but I would say that, when in doubt, ask a youth librarian!

If you don't have one handy, there are a few on the Web. My favorite is E.R. Bird, a New York librarian who also happens to be a prolific Amazon reviewer:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/AMX0PJKV4PPNJ/ref=cm_rna_net_profilecust_name

Her reviews are opinionated and insightful and have helped me find more than a couple books.

Posted by Caleb Ames on May 02, 2008 at 03:16 PM PDT #

My standard recommendation - 'The Science of Discworld' (I and II). Of course it helps to read some other Discworld books first so you know what perspective to have on this "Earth" thing.

Posted by Simon on May 02, 2008 at 03:44 PM PDT #

I would absolutely recommend the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. When he's old enough, I would also recommend the Lord of the Rings trilogy. My 10-year-old also liked the Artemis Fowl series and the Magic Treehouse series.

Posted by Scott Hudson on May 02, 2008 at 06:34 PM PDT #

I highly recommend the Young Wizards series ("So you want to be a wizard").

I also recommend The A.I. Gang.

Posted by Anonymous on May 02, 2008 at 07:19 PM PDT #

My first reaction to this post was "gee,that's a good question and I wish I had an answer." I've now woken up at 2AM rather rather more of an answer than anyone reading the blog probably wants. But here goes anyway. In not much of any order.

One possibility is the "Encyclopedia Brown" series. These aren't chapter books. The are single chapter short stories. They are an easy read. Each of them poses a logic puzzle. (The answers are in the back of the book.) The only downside is that there aren't that many of them, so if Duncan likes them he'll go through all of them fairly quickly.

If Duncan likes the "Encyclopedia Brown" stories, it seems to me to be a natural lead-in to the easier (that is shorter) Sherlock Holmes stories. My personal favorite is "The Speckled Band." Interestingly my daughter came to that as her favorite quite independently from me.

Continuing on the mystery theme, there is the "Hardy Boys" series. As literature... well, they aren't very good. As "comfort food for kids" they are great. (All of them follow the same high-level outline. To the point where you can pretty much predict the plot turns to the page. But I don't recall noticing this for the first 20 or 30 that I read. And then it was fun to do the predicting for the next 20 or 30.) If Duncan likes these, there are *lots* of them.

I think it is easier for children to associate with main characters of the same sex. (Maybe that is just a limited view on my part.) With the Hardy Boys, the reader has the choice of two characters--the two brothers--to associate with. This makes it easier to imagine you are in the book.

For girls, the analog of the Hardy Boys is, in my opinion, the Nancy Drew series. These books are generally more uneven than the Hardy Boys but on the average better. (Both may come from having a larger number of people actually author the Nancy Drew books.)

The more adult version of the Hardy Boys, again in my opinion, is the old pulp fiction series "Doc Savage." These are every bit as much written to a standard outline as the Hardy Boys. Duncan is too young for these now. You'll have to decide whether you want to encourage or discourage these in the future. ;-)

In a completely different direction, there are the classics "Alice in Wonderland" and "Peter Pan."

For something completely different, and really not what you are asking for, try The Song of Hiawatha. Why not try some poetry with Duncan. This would absolutely be something to *read* to him. It would be worth practicing first. The rhythm is wonderful; it is what makes this poem. You'd want to read it to him well. (For adults--most certainly not for Duncan--another poem with a great rhythm is "The Highwayman". Yes, I love rhythmic poems.)

Another classic that might work is "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." A great first science fiction story, in my opinion. (What, that isn't science fiction, you say. Well, I disagree but that isn't really important. While Mark Twain doesn't say it, this books is a wonderful illustration of "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

I read Tom Sawyer at about 10. This probably isn't one to start Duncan reading himself, but it probably would work with you reading it to him. (You might not want to, depending on what you think he might learn from the scene about whitewashing the fence. And you probably need to skip the cave scenes if he doesn't like scary parts.)

("5 + 96" That's a "simple math question"?! Not at 2AM it isn't. So I guess I'll stop here.)

Posted by Steve Uhlir on May 02, 2008 at 11:21 PM PDT #

Thanks everyone. We've got lots of great suggestions
to try out.

Just a few comments (okay, a lot of comments), based
on some of the replies.

We regularly talk with the lady-behind-the-desk in the
children's department at the Los Altos library and she
is very helpful. We'll also now check out E.R. Bird on
Amazon.

I've been thinking about the Discworld novels myself
(and Pratchett's juvenille's). I'm a huge Terry fan;
I think we have every novel by him. Strangely enough
I haven't read "The Science of Discworld" book. Need to
remedy that. We did try "Where's my Cow" with Duncan
when it first came out but he was slightly too old
and didn't know all the characters.

"Wind in the Willows" is another good idea. I have a
book copy (as well as a digital copy); the former being
much easier for bedtime reading. I read it as a child.
It'll be interesting to see if it's dated.

Strangely enough, I only got to "The Earthsea Trilogy"
when I was in my 20's and couldn't get past the first
book. My wife read the series when she was 12 and loved
it. Maybe it's a kid thing. I read the "Lord of the Rings"
trilogy when I was 16 and couldn't put it down. Same for
the "Gormenghast Trilogy".

We've already read the first two books in the Chronicles
of Narnia to a mixed reception (the reason why we haven't
read the rest). The movie helped establish the initial
interest. We'll no doubt watch the second movie when it
comes out later this year, and that might reestablish
his interest.

I have several of the James Herriot books and enjoyed them.
For me, the TV series helped (and having seen this sort of
thing in Real Life). Definitely easy to try a story on him
though.

We have the "Dark Materials" trilogy but wanted to read it
first to make sure it's not too scary. Many reviews suggest
that the first one is great, but the other two are so-so,
so that's been putting us off. My wife reads much faster
than I do, so I might sic her on them.

We'll going to leave Harry Potter for a while. He's not
even interested in the films (which have been on channel
7 every Saturday evening).

He does enjoy comics and some manga. We'll definitely give
"Schlock Mercenary" a try (especially if it's online), but
maybe not as a bedtime thing.

Yesterday evening, we went to the Los Altos Library book
sale. My wife picked up four leather bound volumes of Sherlock
Holmes stories for a dollar each. And this was after about
90 minutes into the sale. I'm truly amazed they weren't snapped
up by one of the bookselling vultures who swarm to these sales
now (one of the bad side effects of Amazon allowing anybody to
sell their books via their web site).

Duncan also picked out "Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era" by
Sterling North, which was a Newbury honor book in 1964 (see list).
We'd just read a book about a fox in San Fransisco that he'd
enjoyed, so I guess he wants more of the same kind of thing.

We'll try the Hardy Boys books. We watched that awful new Nancy
Drew movie on On Demand last weekend. Hopefully he won't know
to associate the Hardy Boys with Nancy Drew otherwise we might
not get anywhere with this idea.

I (personally) think he's slightly too young to fully
appreciate the two Alice books. At least to get some of the
hidden meanings in the stories (see Martin Gardner's excellent
Annotated Alice book). Maybe that's not such a big deal for a
kid.

"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" is another book
I've got that I haven't read myself. Maybe we can kill two
birds with one stone...

For all the others, I've no knowledge of them, so we'll
just take them one at a time.

Thanks again.

Posted by Rich Burridge on May 03, 2008 at 07:48 AM PDT #

Dark Materials is oder teen. It has sex in it for example (if you know where to look). Earthsea is not for ten year olds IMHO, too dark. Alan Garner is sophisticated too; a lot of showing not telling.

Posted by Andrew Sherman on May 03, 2008 at 11:08 AM PDT #

Okay, the one real book I've grown with is "Watership down". I must have read that since when I was nine, and at least five times before I turned 14een.

Many other books from my infancy were written by Italian authors (since I'm in fact one), like Rodari, Pinin Carpi, and other Andersen-prize winners (in italian: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premio_Andersen). Even now that I read almost uniquely in English and have great respect for the British culture, I do believe Italian authors were and are the best for children books.

Another nice book for children is "The wind in the Willows" by Grahame. You could also try with "Farmer Giles of Ham" by J.R.R. Tolkien. It's a very funny and short book.

If you want to get your pants wet by laughing along with your son, try with the Carnegie-medal winning "The amazing Maurice and his educated rodents" by Terry Pratchett.

When all that is done, use Rhoald Dahl as your before-bed bible. "The BFG" and "The Witches" obviously comes first.

When Duncan grows a little more, try with "Redwall" by Brian Jacques and other Pratchett's books. I remember being unable to put them down when I was twelve.

Posted by Matteo Settenvini on May 03, 2008 at 04:45 PM PDT #

I also forgot to recommend the Animorphs series. Targeted at younger readers, yet actually quite thought-provoking. A good plot and plenty of action, but also plenty of interesting ethical questions, non-Disney endings, and characters with more complexity than "just plain good/evil". I started them at Duncan's age.

They also have the interesting twist of presenting each book in first person perspective from a different character in the group, rotating through.

Posted by Anonymous on May 04, 2008 at 11:18 PM PDT #