the 9yo is reading...

I've been meaning to make a list of the series the 9yo has read for...well, since he was the 8yo.  So some of these are now too easy for him but I'm trying to clear the backlog of blog posts so HERE YOU GO!  I'll try to do the same for individual books later,  but series are always fun to look at.

You've almost certainly heard of the original Geronimo Stilton books if you've been looking for reading material for the 6-8yo set in the past several years, but this slightly more recent series (2009 and still going) is called The Kingdom of Fantasy and it takes the story into the next reading level - same colourful graphics, but a thicker, hardcover book and a more advanced plot line than just ' someone stole the cheese'.  The 9yo read these at an early 8yo level, so quite some time ago now.

This 9 book graphic novel series was The Greatest Thing Ever in around summer 2018 and although he inhaled it the first time, I've seen him reread them multiple times.  A little dark in terms of fantasy themes, but still child appropriate.  Who doesn't imagine going on a quest that starts with a monster in the basement?

This series follows a pretty similar plot line to the Amulet story at the beginning,  now that I think of it.  But then, it is a common literary device - children move to new house, new house very creepy, something magic this way comes!  After he read them all we were forced to watch the movie so he could explain why it was wrong.  Sniff.  I'm just so proud.

More Spiderwick Chronicles,  but in a brand new series!  Magic!

The Big Nate books fall squarely into the category of books I would never choose but...I don't feel strongly enough about to ban.

*cough * captain underpants * cough *

Boy.  bullies.  overcoming.  school hijinks.  grossness.  kids are disgusting.  girls are eww.  etc.  I mean, what is there to say?  He read them all.

These are hugely popular with the 7-10 yo kids, and you can see why when you look at how relatively easy they are to read.  Not much of a challenge,  But the 9yo loves comedy, and these are hilarious to him.  I think there are 13 now, and he's read up to 11?  They are definitely  take out of the library books for us, though, and not buy to own books, because he reads them at a rate of 1 a day.

Single handedly responsible for me finding small origami aliens all over my house.  There are several in the series.

 Not a book, but he got the Complete Calvin and Hobbes for his 9th birthday and has read it cover to cover at least half a dozen times.  I think it has even surpasses Garfield at this point...and he's read all of those, too.

We love Zita!  There are three in the series of these graphic novels and they are Worth Owning.  Brave, fantastic girl heroine kind and true and valiant!  Plus robots! Plus space travel and some really great bad guys and a giant rodent!

More Ben Hatke!  A really neat retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk.  There is an innocent first-boy/girl-kiss, just fyi.  The third of the Jack books is actually a story that includes Zita!

Another graphic novel series, this time 6 books long, based around a group of genius kids designing and coding to do cool things.  He's just started it, but I am not anticipating that this will take long.

Another series that he's just started, by the author of the Clementine books.  Looks like it will be a good read for my own odd little inventor/scientist.