Anyone have suggestions for a 10 year old who likes comic mischief? He’s a huge fan of diary of a wimpy kid series but his reading level has moved beyond that. He’s also really enjoyed the wild robot series, Matilda, and the skunk and fox books.
Thanks in advance!
Edit: thank you all for your great recommendations. I’m going to check them all out with him tonight!
I’d recommend tje authors Jack London, Joanne Rowling, Rudyard Kipling, Terry Pratchett, Arthur Doyle… in no particular order.
I don’t think Terry Pratchett is appropriate for a 10y/o if only because it’s a huge waste; they won’t understand more than 10% of the jokes
He wrote a decent number of books aimed at kids. There are the Tiffany Aching books in Discworld for a start, as well as non discworld books like Only You Can Save Mankind or the Bromeliad books.
I wouldn’t stop a 10yo from reading any of the discworld books if they’re enjoying them, mind. There’s lots to find funny anyway, and we all had to start building our “reference vocabulary” somewhere.
I didn’t realize he was a prolific kids author! TIL!
I’m always torn: I’d never stop someone from reading a book “too early” but I also don’t want someone to, fot example, miss out on a great character romance story because they already read the book for the action when they were 11
Former (Dutch) teacher here! Diary of a wimpy kid is easy reading for a lot of kids and I always found that the really engrossing books could help them move on to their actual reading level. For my students who liked comic mischief in class, I could always get them hooked to reading with The Saga of Darren Shan.
Don’t let the ‘horror’ genre fool you: the story is dark and funny. Based on the books you named I think your kid might love it!
I’d recommend the Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz. It’s junior James Bond, my kids loved them.
I enjoyed the Redwall series around his age. Yes , they are formulaic after a while, but good fun pulp adventure for kids.
There is a large selection of Japanese light novels that are being translated into English. This is where a lot of the original source material for anime comes from. The anime is often created to sell the books, in fact.
There’s a lot of stuff that won’t be appropriate until they hit 13yo or so, but my nephew, a voracious reader, started reading LNs around 10.
Spice & Wolf is a personal favorite that might be a good fit. They will miss out on the romantic subplot but that’s only a small part of the story
