Beyond Harry Potter?

[StarFields]

What are good follow on titles for young folk who got into reading books via Harry Potter and now want to read something else?

Particularly for boys (I have two) and my knowledge of such things for the young uns stops somewhere around 1976 and on top, I was a girl!

LOL

What has worked well?

wonders

SFxxx

 

[dele]

Give them the Hobbit, and after that if they're up for the challenge, The Lord of the Rings is good too. And contrary to popular belief, they aren't too sofisticated for children; my sister read all three in two weeks when she was ten.

Monica Hughes and Karleen Bradford are two good children's authors as well. Monica Hughes wrote mostly sci-fi/fantasy adventures while Karleen Bradford's forte is historical fiction.

 

[Martin]

Oh dear, what his name again. There this new series of books about a boy wizard ... Drake? Something like that.

Somebody please tell me, or I'll go insane!

Cheers

 

[novella]

For younger than, say, 11, I recommend the Redwall books by Brian Jacques, a brilliant, complex series with animal characters that are not babyish at all.

For a little older, Ender's Game and other books by Orson Scott Card are great suspenseful adventuresf with a lot of the supernatural and mysticism of Potter.

For little kids, The Hardy Boys still have great appeal, and there are lots of newer ones, with more up-to-date settings and language, though my son always liked the older ones too.

These recs are based on my son's preferences. He's an avid reader, 14 now, moved on to John LeCarre, and is now in the middle of The Codebreakers, a history of encoding and encryption back to pre-Roman times.

Novella

 

[Ashlea]

Eoin Coffer (or something like that) wrote some other books about a boy wizard (Artemis something?), I didn't enjoy the one I read as much as Harry Potter but it was not bad.

 

[Martin]

Yes!! Artemis Fowl! Thank you, it was already driving me mad!!

Cheers

 

[Addie Cay]

Eragon by Christopher Paolini (the first in a beginning set of three

someone mentioned the Brian Jaque series (spelling on last name wrong )

The Lemnony Snickett series (10 so far)

Garth Nix has many GOOD series out

so on and so forth =)

 

[blueboatdriver]

what about C.S.Lewis. No competition.

 

[dele]

what about C.S.Lewis. No competition.

How could I forget C.S. Lewis!?!? I don't think I could count the hours I spent as a kid wishing I was off in Narnia and hoping that Aslan would come take me away.

 

[Halo]

Just by the by to Ashlea and Martin: Artemis Fowl is not a boy wizard - he is a 13 year old criminal mastermind! His adventures do tangle him up with fairies and dwarfs, but I don't remember him doing any wizarding!

 

[StarFields]

Thank you all, I check out the recommendations and run them by the victims, oops, children boys.

If anything else comes to mind, please post it?

cheers,

SFxxx

 

[magemanda]

Robin Jarvis has written some pretty nifty books (The Deptford Mice trilogy and his Whitby Witches series are both great, although I remember them being a little scary in parts).

Robin Swindells has written some awesome books - by far by favourite by him is Room 13.

 

[Occlith]

I suggest the series Tales of Gom in the Legends of Ulm by Grace Chetwin. With four titles-
Gom on Windy Mountain (1986)
The Riddle and the Rune (1987)
The Crystal Stair (1988)
The Starstone (1989)
Has the requisite quest(s) and a boy wizard. For age 9 and up.

 

[ApopkaDad]

Those who like Harry Potter would love a great new series called Dragons in Our Midst by Bryan Davis.

The first book is called Raising Dragons. It came out in July. The second is called The Candlestone, and it will be out in October.

Check out the author's website. http://www.dragonsinourmidst.com

 

[Marge]

I would recommend 'The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime' by Mark Haddon, though you will need to check if you buy the adults or kids version as some of the language is rather 'adult' in places.

What about some retro books such as 'The Wind In The Willows', or the Sherlock Holmes stories?

 

[lemur]

Firstly, try Alan Garner, particularly:
"The Weirdstone of Brisingamen" and its sequel "The Moon of Gomrath"
"The Owl Service"
"Elidor"

These are all a bit scarier (not necessarily a bad thing of course) IMO than H.P. but all extremely good books, esp. Weirdstone.

Also, you might want to check out the Dark is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper. The first - "Over Sea, Under Stone" is almost "Famous Five" in flavour and is a poor sibling to the rest of the series, but persevere with it as does provide setup material for the other books and is still a pretty good book.

Kev

 

[Yarr]

Anthon Horowitz wrote some fun children books. Though his recent hits about a boy of 14 who is a spy I never read. I am not into that kind of books.

There are more books about children doing magic and wizard and witch schools (Horowitz, Jill Murphy and so on), but I haven't read them all myself and it may fall bleach compared to Harry Potter, because no doubt they will be compared to Harry. Also, some are by female writers and I am not sure in how far a book is too girly for boys.