The Adventures of Tintin
My daughter teaches first grade and a couple of her GT students (reading 2nd grade level and beyond) got hooked on The Boxcar Children series. While not science and technology, you might want to look into them. I think the series has over 100 titles now - same characters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boxcar_Children
My son is now 20 but when he was younger some of the sci-fi series he liked (many also incorporate fantasy) were:
The Pendragon series by DJ MacHale (amazon age 10-14)
The Tunnels series by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams (amazon age 8-12)
The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell (amazon age 8-12)
According to the wiki pages, Tunnels has a focus on archeology and the Edge Chronicles on flight technology.
My youngest just read all the books in The Wizard of Oz series and really enjoyed them but I guess that doesn’t really fit the need for the science/inventor aspect too well.
Super suggestions – thanks so much!
7? ooh, definitely not Doctorow, then.
Heinlein wrote a series for kids called Lucky Starr, Space Pirate – it is out of print but you might find used. Also, Mark Crilley’s Akiko series. Ember is great, as are the Benedict Society books (more mysterious than science, but plenty to solve and puzzle, plus they are long) Another puzzle/mystery/logical thought book is Ellen Raskin’s Mysterious Disappearance of Leon.
Suzanne Collins’ Gregor The Overlander series? Normally 4-5th grade, and more adventure than science…
When my kids were voracious readers, but very young I found that the best way to get them stuff that was at their reading level, but also at the right emotional level was too go to older classics. Until Harry Potter made it all right to publish longer children’s books you had to go back to the 19th century to get really meaty books. Even up until the 1960s books for kids were generally safely G-rated. I’m not a prude, but I don’t think we be careful not to have our kids grow up faster than they need to. Ender stomps a kid to death in chapter one. Is that really what you want your seven year old to read?
It’s too bad he doesn’t like fantasy, because there are fabulous choices. My kids ate up the Redwall books, Tolkein, E. Nesbit, Edward Eager at that age.
Jules Verne?
Funny thing is that he doesn’t get how long ago the books were written and will sometimes ask me odd questions like “what’s a phone cord? wasn’t his phone charged?”
I had a voracious reader too and I will never forget asking the librarian for help finding an appropriate series. she recommended the mrs pigglewiggle books. mine really couldn’t get through the first chapter as the references were so old-timey (i sort of remember some euphemism for a victrola) that she just had zero frame of reference to comprehend them. it honestly was terrible recommendation…
while mine had amazing skills and comprehension at 7 it was extremely difficult to find appropriate fiction at the level she was at. a teacher finally suggested we concentrate on non-fiction and that worked very well-it was challenging enough from a skills perspective and much easier to control content and keep it high interest…there are books on any subject imaginable.
but her talents did not preclude her from reading junie b. jones and captain underpants for enjoyment–not everything has to be a teachable moment. sometimes, reading should just be for fun.