There are all kinds of reasons I have not gotten to this post, not the least of which is, I am not a boy. But, I recently got some input from my brother, John, who is, if anything, more of a book fiend than I am and he gave me some books to contribute to the Best Books for Boys. Some of them I had never heard of!
Unfortunately, some of what I consider to be the Best General Books are what ought to really go under Best Books for Boys and I'm afraid that if I don't put them in this list, boys will think they don't need to read them. So, I'm going to repeat some.
So, here, in no particular order, are 10 of the Best Books for Boys:
1)My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George. A boy runs away from home and is very deliberate and thoughtful about learning how to live off the land.
2) Farley Mowat books. He writes books for children as well as adults about animals that are real, not anthropomorphic. Most famous are Owls in the Family, about a family with two owls for pets and Hatchet, about a boy whose small plane crash lands in Alaska and the pilot is killed. He survives with the hatchet he just received. Farley Mowat's adult book Never Cry Wolf was made into a movie and I imagine it would make a good read for boys.
3) Beverly Cleary books. The best ones for boys are the Henry Huggins books and Ralph, the mouse books. Henry Huggins was the first book that my son read for his own amusement.
4) Mark Twain. I haven't read anything of his I didn't like. Some of it is tongue in cheek and some is quite serious. But, since boys are often the main characters (Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, The Prince and the Pauper) there is a lot of appeal for the young men in your house.
5) The Call of the Wild. Jack London is great but this one is my favorite.
6) Robert Louis Stevenson. Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and its sequel Catriona.
7) My brother's all-time favorite book as a boy -- Banner in the Sky by James Ramsey Ullman. It's about a boy whose father dies climbing in the Alps and he decides to climb the mountain in memory of his father.
8) Stalky & Co., Rudyard Kipling. I know a lot of Kipling: this one I don't. But, my brother recommends it and that's good enough for me.
9) Another recommendation from my brother is Matt Christopher books. John says they aren't great literature, but they are books about sports and are enjoyable for boys.
10) G. A. Henty was considered one of THE writers for boys and was copied by many other authors. These are historical fiction. There is a certain amount of racism, but the main characters are always admirable young men and women.
