<p>I will be buying some books for a rising 9th grade boy.</p>
<p>Would you be willing to recommend some titles?</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>Hemmingway is good for boys. Also Lord of the Flies.</p>
<p>Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.
The Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz.</p>
<p>Last Days of Summer</p>
<p>Does he like sports? If so, “The Blind Side” by Michael Lewis is excellent - even my non-reader liked it. I second the recommendation for “Lord of the Flies” and would add “The Color of Water” by James McBride.</p>
<p>Books for what purpose? Fiction or nonfiction? Good, but not edifying, reads? Or books, including fiction, to prepare him for high school? </p>
<p>Most schools publish a summer reading list with suggested titles. He may get his when school ends.</p>
<p>Books that are often suggested for high school reading (a mix of classics and contemporary fiction/nonfiction): The Kite Runner, The Hot Zone, Catch-22, 2001 – A Space Odyssey, Into Thin Air, The Grapes of Wrath, Native Speaker, Fight Club, The Great Santini, The Known World, A Prayer for Owen Meaney, The Natural, Brave New World . . . I could go on. I’ve edited the list to include only those with male protagonists since a ninth grader would probably enjoy those more than some of the others.</p>
<p>Here is the list of what we have read in our Mother/Son book group… we started at the end of 7th grade…and we are now at the end of 10th grade, so not quite 10 books a year… which is a lot as several of the boys go away in the summer… they are very active, 1 works part time all the time. I think we find it hardest to start up again after the summer, in the fall 1 guy plays football, 4 play soccer, 1 does Mock Trial, in the winter, 2 do ski team, 1 does indoor track, 1 has major roles in theater, and we all ski every weekend. In the spring, 1 does lacrosse, 3 are on the tennis team, 1 does outdoor track, every child is honors student with grades, so they do well in school…we try to pick books that they will enjoy because there are so many distractions available…ESPN1 ESPN2 etc etc… </p>
<p>Lord of the Flies
Huckleberry Finn
Harry Potter Book 5
Memories of the Mick
DeathWatch
And Then There Were None
Give a Boy a Gun
Killer Angels
The Mouse that Roared
Crispin
Edgar Allen Poe - Tales of Horror and Suspense
House of the Scorpion
Hot Zone
Harry Potter Book 6
A Separate Peace
Casino Royale
Monster
Friday Nite Lites
Bode Miller Autobiography
Across the Nightingale Floor
The Valachi Papers
The Power of One
The Shadow of the Wind
This Boys Life
Longitude
Eiger Dreams
The Caine Mutiny</p>
<p>I chose Longitude and they didn’t really like it…they tease me about reading about imaginary lines around the earth… and I keep telling them that they will not forget that story…they loved The House of the Scorpion, one of our best discussions after…Hot Zone was also popular…we moms think that the book/story they enjoyed the most was Killer Angels… Casino Royale was an attempt to pick something lighter due to the school/sports schedule at the time…not much to talk about after…</p>
<p>Also consider:</p>
<p>Sherlock Holmes stories, Jack London’s Call of the Wild, Jack Finney’s Time and Again, Angela’s Ashes, Ursuala Le Guin’s Wizard of Earthsea trilogy.</p>
<p>My 8th grade son has read and enjoyed the following books in the past year or so:</p>
<p>Nickel and Dimed
The Life of Pi
The Riddle of the Sands (Erskine Childers)
Foundation series (Isaac Asimov)
All Quiet on the Western Front
The Squire’s Tale and series (Gerald Morris) - for younger kids, but wonderful
His Majesty’s Dragon
Point Blank and others (Anthony Horowitz)</p>
<p>On his summer reading list is Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks - he hasn’t read it, but I have. It’s an absolutely wonderful book about life in an English village during the plague.</p>
<p>1984 and Animal Farm by Orwell.
The Plague by Camus.
I also second Lord of The Flies</p>
<p>Thank you very much for your replies!</p>
<p>He likes sports.</p>
<p>I’d rather not give “school” books, I’d rather give books that he might not otherwise hear about. Fiction or nonfiction are both fine.</p>
<p>We did not try to get S to read “good” literature; we just let him read whatever he liked. He’s probably read the entire works of Terry Pratchett and Piers Anthony (both comic fantasy fiction), besides Tolkien, David Eddings, and similar authors. He also enjoyed science and math books.<br>
You may want to look up the lists posted on hoagiesgifted.org for more suggestions.</p>
<p>A sports kid might like Tangerine by Eric Bloor. (It’s about a kid who plays soccer and an older brother who is a football star. It’s on a lot of reading lists.) My kids (one just finishing up 9th grade) read mostly sci fi and fantasy. They both loved Ender’s Game and all the sequels. They like Robert Jordan (very fat), Steven Brust, Lois McMasters Bujold, Tolkien, David Weber For non-fiction Freakonomics is a possiblity. Very easy to read and interesting.</p>
<p>If he likes baseball, my boys enjoyed Moneyball by Michael Lewis.</p>
<p>My son also loved Bringing Down the House, about MIT students who won millions at Las Vegas casinos by using card-counting techniques.</p>
<p>He also liked Dune (and series) by Frank Herbert.</p>
<p>A couple of other non-fiction possibilities: </p>
<p>Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet out of Idaho by Jon Katz. My son read this for required summer reading and really enjoyed it. </p>
<p>The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor by Ken Silverstein</p>
<p>anything by Kurt Vonnegut is my suggestion as a 9th grader ;)</p>
<p>I know that you asked for book suggestions, and you have received great advice. Please do not forget to include newspapers and news magazines. Feature stories can be very informative, and can be read while waiting around.</p>
<p>If he likes sports, the re-released Chip Hilton books, The Last Amateurs, and ESPN the magazine.</p>
<p>When my son was in junior high he like reading Grisham books. They’re easy reading and fast.</p>