Hi all,

I'm having a hard time getting my 8 year old son to read anything.  Does anyone have any suggestions on authors or series that may capture his attention?  He's in the third grade and won't go anywhere near a chapter book.  This has to change -- soon! 

Any help, suggestions, and deals would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,
Denise

Denise - 

I have the SAME PROBLEM but my son is now 9 going into 4th grade. Last year when he was forced to read for school every night (and fought me on that), the only ones he kept reading were the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series - we have all the books so he just kept re-reading them in random order. He also liked The Black Lagoon books and Captain Underpants (I was getting desperate and bought him anything as long as he would read it). Anything with more depth or story to it, he reads about 20 pages and then the book sits and he's looking for something different. I even tried reading out loud to him and him reading out loud to me taking turns using a book that had more of a story but after a few nights of that, he was bored again. I'm going to have to watch this thread to see if you get any suggestions on how to deal with this. Good luck.

Marilyn

Marilyn -- I think our boys are related!!  My daughter has the Wimpy Kids series (and she loves it) so I'll try him on that.  I'm grabbing any Spongebob I can find, but those aren't exactly chapter books.  He does like the Lego "comics" -- especially Star Wars -- but, again, not chapter books. He loses interest very quickly, and he gets very lazy and wants me to do the reading.  I suspect he daydreams when I do the reading:-)  I'm also considering investing in some Power Rangers Samurai books (none in PBS so far) since he loves that on TV.

We also have some Captain Underpants.  I'll drag those out as well.  Good luck on your quest!

Denise

Have you tried graphic novels?  I've had good success with those and reluctant readers.  I start them out on smaller ones and then work their way up to longer ones, which can then be translated to chapter books if it goes well.  

I highly recommend the Squish and Lunch Lady series.  There's also one called Dragonbreath that's more of a hybrid (more text, but still lots of pictures) kind of like the Wimpy Kid books, but much shorter if he's intimidated by the length of those books.  I can grab lots more suggestions for graphic novels he can try, so if you'd like them, feel free to PM me.    

Does he have any TV shows he really likes?  If so, I would see if there's books related to that.  My brother jumped 3 reading levels when he was 7 because he found some novelizations of his favorite cartoon show at the time.  

You may also want to post this over in the Kids forum.  Someone there might have some additional suggestions for you, or there might already be a thread of this type that would have some other ideas.

Good luck! 

Thanks Alisa.  I will PM you.  I looked at the forums list and didn't see the kids forum -- I'll look again.  Thanks!

Oops!  I guess it's called "Children's Books", my mistake.  It's the third one down under "discussion by genre".

http://www.paperbackswap.com/Childrens-Books/forum/24/