The Vine: March 9, 2007
Hey, Sars,
I have an 11-year-old bookworm who is quiet at school, and who has been somewhat down lately, middle school is just not what he had hoped it would be. While at first he loved the frequent change of scenery involved in multiple classes, now he’s coming home looking like somebody stole his Roald Dahl collection. There are lots of deep sighs and very short crabby responses to my husband’s or my barrage of “What’s wrong, you can talk to us” type of lame attempts at drawing him out. When there is one of those opportunities when he feels like sharing something, it’s usually something like “[sigh…] I mean, what is the POINT of everything? I understand what they’re teaching us, it’s just all so meaningless.” Apparently he finishes his work early in class and just sits there waiting for the bell to ring for the next one, same song, second verse. It sounds like he’s more bored than anything and the thought of being bored like this “all day long every single day for ever and EVER” is what gets him down.I remember when I was in (what was then called) junior high, I always had a book handy to kill off the extra time in class. I wasn’t picky, I read a lot of bestsellers at the time (and also whatever was on my parents’ bookshelves). Our son does love to read but has already read a lot of the books directed at his age group, and with his tendency toward being somewhat mopey and dramatic, a lot of the “coming of age” material just gets him down or worked up (a la The Giver). Every time he takes a standardized test he shows his reading level at somewhere post high school, so I think he has a lot more choices for reading material than many might at his age.So the question is, what books might be appropriate for him to give him a lift and kill some time at school? To give you an idea of the type of children’s fiction that he has really enjoyed, he has read a lot of C.S. Lewis and some Tolkien, everything by Dahl, Sacher, Lemony Snicket and of course Rowling. We’re no help here, I read a lot of checkout-stand mysteries and my mom’s Erma Bombeck books, my husband’s only recommendation was Catcher in the Rye. Our son doesn’t necessarily want books directed toward the youth market, he wants a new challenge, but he probably doesn’t need anything too PG-13. Currently finding a hiding place for our copy of Jarhead and for anything by Tom Robbins
Dear Rob,
My parents had a similar problem with me at that age; I’d read everything aimed at my age cohort in the local public library, and the librarians weren’t keen on turning me loose in the adult section, so I started plowing through my parents’ college books, which…I was eleven. The level of the language wasn’t an issue, but to say that I really got was I was reading when it came to Hemingway is probably a stretch, which is the issue here, I think — the themes in adult fiction are just kind of over the head of the average middle-schooler.
So, I would suggest non-fiction for your son right now. It might seem counterintuitive, given that his tastes seem to run to fantasy, but I think it’s the best way to close the gap between his chronological age and his scholastic one. I really liked William Poundstone’s Big Secrets series at that age, and Poundstone has a couple other books in a similar vein, like The Ultimate, that are perfect for dipping in and out of during a school day.
He might also enjoy a collection of ghost stories, which tend to be more all-ages. And you could always ask a librarian to recommend some historical bios or memoirs that aren’t too juicy (or boring) for a youngun.
Readers, let’s find some reading material for the kid. No more than two books per post, please; you can also recommend periodicals.
Tags: Ask The Readers kids popcult
Emily–Not only is there a sequal to “The House with the Clock in its Walls,” There are about 25. My husband ADORED (still does) Bellairs, though he gets very tetchy when you bring up the later “continuations” by Brad Strickland. I second/third/whatever that suggestion.
And the suggestion of classic adventures is awesome too. The Count of Monte Christo and The Three Musketeers were already mentioned; I’d add Ivanhoe (though you might need to have a little conversation with your son about the anti-semetic asides that pop up in it; it’s actually a good way to start a conversation about changing moral values, etc.).
Terry Pratchett’s Johnny Maxwell series (Only You Can Save the World and Johnny and the Dead) are both quite good. Neil Gaiman’s Coraline and maybe Stardust are also books he should enjoy.
It’s no sci-fi or fantasy, but he might like “The Westing Game.” It’s a great mystery that I still love even as an adult.
I highly recommend anything by Anne McCaffrey – especially the Pern series. I reread the whole series every couple of years and love it more everytime. For my nieces and nephews I got all the Hardy boys and Nandy Drew books I could find. I find that a series of books is really great because the reader can really get to know the characters and use their imagination.
I also REALLY recommend the Terry Pratchett — particularly starting off with his Young Adult books — The Bromeliad Trilogy, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, the Johnny Maxwell trilogy (Only You Can Save Mankind). If he likes those, by all means move on to the Discworld
If he would prefer non-fiction, Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon-Tiki is a breathtaking real-life adventure story that anyone could read.
So many good books listed already… Let me suggest a magazine. If he’s interested in science and tech-y things, “Make” magazine might capture his interest. (www.makezine.com) It’s full of awesome stuff like how to cryogenically freeze and then revive a garden snail, or how to build an ornithopter – a paper airplane that flaps to fly. Some of the electronics stuff is beyond me, but it never fails to fascinate.
I third the rec for Watership Down! Not in the fantasy genre, but when I was that age I read a lot of John Steinbeck (The Pearl, Of Mice and Men, Travels with Charley, etc.). Jill above mentioned Orwell’s Animal Farm…I also read Down and Out in Paris and London back then, along with 1984.
The great thing about libraries is, you can try something you’re not sure of, and if you’re not digging it after a few dozen pages, you can put it aside without feeling guilty. So encourage the young man to branch out into other genres…he might be surprised by what he likes, plus it impresses the hell out of grown-ups for a kid to have actually read Steinbeck or Orwell or Hemingway or whatever…
To echo Marie’s suggestion above – I really loved Agatha Christie at that age, specifically the Hercule Poirot mysteries. She has a great dry wit, and the mysteries are very good and a definite improvement over the simplisitic Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys options without being explicit. My dad introduced me to the books, and it was something really great we could share. I remember family movie nights watching things like “Murder on the Orient Express.” Part of the fun, also, was digging through used-books stores looking for out-of-print titles and British versions of the books. Plus, she wrote a ton of them; they kept me occupied for several summers.
My boyfriend, who has difficulty getting into reading, really enjoyed the Hitchhiker’s Guide books when he was in middle school. They were some of the few books he really wanted to dive into and read the whole series.
I remember the boredom of junior high years well, though I don’t
remember what I read as clearly. I’d recommend To Kill a Mockingbird,
which I read every year starting at age nine through my freshman year
of high school (when it was assigned)–I got more out of it as I got
older, but I remember falling in love with Jem and Scout even at a
young age. My other recommendation is that maybe a talk with some
sympathetic teachers/administrators might help. When I was in seventh
grade, I got sent to an eighth grade math class to counteract the
boredom/ease of the assignments. Other teachers gave me special
research projects to work on once I was done with the assigned work.
I did get teased for being too smart, but it wasn’t like that teasing
didn’t happen before I got the extra work. Those projects saved my
love of learning and school, keeping me engaged until I finally found
classes in later years that really challenged me.
Best of luck to middle schooler’s parents,
I kind of still want to be Scout
Seconded on the Neil Gaiman rec. ‘Stardust’ and ‘Neverwhere’ would probably be a lot of fun for an eleven-year-old.
The best birthday present I ever got when I was a kid was my very own subscription to National Geographic. I got it from my uncle when I was in first grade and thought it was the coolest thing ever that I got my own copy when my parents got theirs. When I outgrew the novelty of getting my own copy like mom and dad, he switched it to Smithsonian. My dad kept all of his back issues of NG going back to the late sixties, so I read them all, too. I think either of those would appeal greatly to an intellligent middle schooler.
As for books? I grew up in Alabama, so my go to reference is and always will be “To Kill A Mockingbird.”
I remember those years vividly, and I would have loved to have had one Mr. Neil Gaiman to help me out. “Neverwhere” is an excellent place to start. No sex, and the violence is pretty “comic book.” If he likes it and it doesn’t freak him out, Gaiman has an amazing canon to choose from.
If you don’t mind a wee bit of cussing, (I’d check these out yourself before passing them on, they might be a bit much) I’d also rec. Roddy Doyle. He wrote “The Commitments” et. al. Damn, I remember those frustrating years lit-wise. Good luck!
Ooh, Jenn, you beat me to it! The Westing Game is one of my favorite books of all time, and I first read it (with my mom) at age 10 or 11. Good times.
And John Bellairs = amazing. I was really lucky to go to a great school where we actually read the House with a Clock in its Walls for class, and I ended up reading at least two or three of the others on my own at that age. They’re so good, and so much fun!
I’d suggest A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle (and all her other work) and Also anything by Patricia C. Wrede starting with Dealing With Dragons.
This new ability to comment totally rocks! I don’t have any kids of my own but I do have Sunday School kids who are this age, and there are always a couple of bookworms.
I second what you say about the non-fiction, Sars – along the lines of the Big Secrets books, there’s also any of the Cecil Adams Straight Dope compendia, or my favorite from my tween years, the good old Guinness Book.
Heinlien’s boyscout novels could be good here. Tunnel in the sky, orphans of the sky, space cadet, glory road, red planet, citzen of the galazy, starship troopers, etc.
Definitely Orson Scott Card, as a couple others mentioned. Card so perfectly depicts what it is like to be a gifted child that your son will think the books are being written about him, which is a pretty neat feeling when reading a book.
For something more lighthearted, I loved the Xanth series by Piers Anthony when I was his age, even though a lot of the jokes and puns went over my head the first time I read them.
I second many of the recommendations here: John Bellairs’ books (LOVE THEM), ‘A Wrinkle in Time’, ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’, the ‘Dark Tower’ series by Stephen King, and others.
I have to plug my favorite book above all others (and I am a librarian): “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain.
Also, it sounds to me like he is more than ready for some other “adult” books (I don’t mean x-rated, of course).
I’d like add my support to the “Dark is Rising” series and add “Summerland” by Michael Chabon. Summerland is Chabon’s foray in young adult novels and he cites Cooper as one of his inspirations. Chabon says he tried to do for American mythology what Cooper did with Arthurian legend. Thus, the book is an adventure with young protagonists that deals with baseball and Native American mythology. It has great characters, has a lot of humor, and an amazing use of language.
I have a 19 year old girl and two boys ages 15 and 10. Our school district has several magnet programs that focus on gifted and talented kids and we have taken advantage of them with all of our kids. They focus on science and math, advanced English and literature, the arts, etc. I would strongly suggest that you look into any programs your district has for GT kids. The classes are generally smaller which allows the teachers to give more individual attention to each child, and even allow students to have input into curriculum. The kids are more involved and more challenged. They are also with a peer group that shares their interests, but are also their own age which is easier for the child than skipping grades.
I second and third recommendations for Douglas Adams’s Hitch-Hikers’ Guide trilogy (of five books), and also highly recommend Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus trilogy. I wish I’d had that series when I was a kid. Similar to the Harry Potter stories, but with some good twists and a bit more of an adult slant.
I’ve got two recommendations for the kid, but first here’s one for his
mom. The story she told in her letter sounded just like many of the
kids in a book I just read called _Genius Denied: How to Stop Wasting
Our Brightest Young Minds_ (Davidson and Davidson, 2004). It
describes a lot of students like her son and what needs to be done to
get schools to recognize that kids with genius IQs are as different
from the average child as are severely retarded students. I can’t say
for sure that her son is a genius, of course, but he does sound quite
a bit like the kids in this book.
Recs for the son:
_The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing_ (Anderson, 2006) New YA
fiction – won the National Book Award and talks about a young Black
kid in the 18th century who thinks he gets so much attention because
his mom’s a princess, but we gradually learn that he’s being studied
like a zoo animal.
_Stardust_ (Gaiman, 2001) Lovely fantasy, originally in graphic
format but I read the text version.
Wow, I’m surprised no one’s mentioned Edward Eager or E. Nesbit yet! JK Rowling has said that they were two of her biggest influences as a writer. Nesbit’s “Five Children and It” and “The Magic City” are rightly regarded as classics of childrens’ fantasy and the gold standard by which subsequent writers have measured themselves. Eager’s “Half Magic” and “The Time Garden” were special favorites when I was 11, and have a really lovely sense of fun and wordplay in the same vein as Dahl and Norman Juster.
These are all really brilliant recommendations. I don’t think I can add too many specific books (except maybe anything by Robin McKinley), but I would start looking through the Newberry Award winners. They’re a little like the Oscars in that they don’t always pick the best book of the year, or the best book an author has written, but the quality is generally high and they’re good for discovering really great writers. Also, for “adult” lit., I think 19th century is generally easier than 20th—thematically, if not in terms of vocab–so Dickens, Austin, Melville (short stories), Hawthorne, Dumas, Hugo, etc.
Definitely check out “Airborn” and the sequel “Skybreaker” by Kenneth Oppel. Incredible – some of the best YA lit I’ve read this year.
Definitely Terry Pratchett’s Discworld. They’re phenomenal, and quite accessible if he comes in via the young adult ones, as others reccommended. He can read them on whatever level suits him — from a light comedy read to a deeper one about the nature of being human, etc. (especially the Witches and Guards series) as he gets older.
Plus, if he likes them there are scores more to keep him going for ages, and new ones almost every year!
I recommend Jerry Spinelli (my personal favorite of his books is Space Station Seventh Grade, but since the kid likes fantasy, he might prefer some of Spinelli’s more magical-realism style books; the most famous is Maniac Magee, although SSSG is for older kids so your son might prefer it). Especially since the kid’s a Louis Sachar fan; I tend to like both of their books for the same reasons.
Also — and I thought long and hard about what else to recommend given that we were limited to two — you might try out the Feddy the Pig books by Walter R. Brooks (such as Freddy the Politician). These are about a detective who also happens to be a pig (a “Renaissance pig” as he likes to call himself). This may seem like a counter-intuitive choice since your son is saying he wants more of a challenge, and the plot of the stories makes them sound as though they’re for younger kids. But their fun really lies in their very dry British wit (often poking fun at Freddy’s pretentiousness in a fairly subtle way, as I recall) that I think a more sophisticated kid could get really into. Plus, there’s 26 of ’em(!), so if he did happen to love them, you wouldn’t run out for a while to come.
Best of luck,
Still reading the same books as when I was eleven
A gremlin ate my comment! Forgive me if this is a double post.
My 12 year old son is a voracious reader. Here are some titles from his bookcase. I’ve tried not to duplicate other recommendations.
Alex Rider series by Anthony Horowitz
Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer
“Hoot” and “Flush” by Carl Hiassen
“Lightning Thief” and its sequel by Rick Riordan
“Peter and the Starcatcher” and its sequel by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
“The Road of the Dead” by Kevin Brooks
“Heat” and other YA books by Mike Lupica, but only if he’s into sports
The Lord of the Rings trilogy by Tolkien
Darren Shan – these are gory, not literature, but middle school boys love gore
For nonfiction, anything by Bill Bryson
We also have the complete boxed set of Calvin and Hobbes cartoons, for lazy, rainy afternoons.
Finally, you may have to cut him loose on adult fiction, after you’ve read it first, of course. My son just finished “The Terror” by Dan Simmons, a 700 page novel based on an actual arctic expedition in the 1800s in which two ships were trapped in the ice for three years. There’s some fairly tame, not-too-graphic sex, and a bit of violence, since they’re starving, but it’s a compelling read and I decided to let my son take a shot at it after I finished it. He loved it – lugged all 700 pages to school every day. It may not be OK for every middle schooler, but I tend to be fairly liberal in what I allow my kids to read. When I was 12, my mother told the town librarian that I was to be allowed to check out any book in the library, and it was the greatest gift she’s ever given me. Good luck!
A lot of the other recommendations here are great. Diana Wynne Jones, Pratchett, Lloyd Alexander, and Pullman are fabulous.
Peter Beagle was an author I loved at that age. The Last Unicorn is a great book. I’d also recommend Diane Duane (So You Want to Be a Wizard, series but also lots of other good stuff).
I also got very into mysteries at that age. I loved the Rabbi (Tuesday the Rabbi saw Red) series by Kemelmen (very accessible, not too scary, but still interesting).
Ella Minnow Pea might be fun for him as well. I also really liked the Magic Kingdom series and Shannara series (both Terry Brooks).
King Arthur books might also be good. There are several good series: Persia Wooley’s, the Merlin books (Barron), and others. And reading several variations on theme can be helpful.
And that’s probably more than enough:)
1) I, um, *peeks* twelfth *?* the Terry Pratchett suggestion. All of his work, from his younger-audience targetted material (which I read as a 30-something adult and think are wonderful), to his original Discworld series. I don’t think there’s anything in there inappropriate for his age.
2) I second the Piers Anthony, also. Xanth and Incarnations series are good. I’ve grown away from him, alas, but he made me smile through much of my teens.
Daniel Pinkwater! His books are off-beat and smart like Sachar’s. He writes for grown-ups (and is a commentator on NPR!), without having as much of a dark edge as Dahl. Lizard Music, Borgel, and Fishwhistle are favorites, but everything (except perhaps The Afterlife Diet, which is a little preachy) is good.
P.G. Wodehouse! Officially, most of his books are “adult,” but he got his start in writing for boys, and there’s nothing racy or violent in any of his novels. To start, I’d suggest the Jeeves and Wooster stories, of course, and also the novel Leave it to Psmith. Pretty much everything he wrote is good, though. And they’re definitely not the kind of thing to induce mopiness in the reader.
And, add another to the been-through-it-myself list. My school experience was similarly unstimulating, to the point where after fifth grade my parents pulled me out and began homeschooling my sister and me. I don’t know what your situation is like, but that was a solution that worked well for us. (If you’re interested in that, I’m happy to have Sars give you my email address.)
If he’s into animals, The Yearling is a good one.
A great series (nonfiction) is the All Creatures Great and Small series, by James Herriot, and English veterinarian.
This may be out of his interest area, but when I was around his age, I really enjoyed “historical books,” e.g. The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both by Jack London. I also got heavily into Stephen King’s books starting at that age. I didn’t find any of his books really frightening until It…clowns do it everytime; gives me the heebie jeebies just typing it.
Try the Animorphs books. My brother loved them when he was that age. I read a few and thought they were pretty good also.
I second so many of these suggestions… a recent book that I got for my nephew of the same age for Christmas was Elizabeth Laird’s _A Little Piece of Ground_. It’s a beautiful story set in Palestine, which gives it a certain seriousness (which your son might appreciate?), but the protagonists are a group of soccer-playing boys. It’s won a number of children’s lit awards.
Wow – this was one of those situations where I thought I was the only one who had read John Bellairs. Yeah, there are a lot of sequels. Now I kind of want to reread it! (I’m also happy that so many people are recommending Garth Nix.)
I want to add in that as someone who works with middle schoolers, I understand that it’s not easy for the ones who are ahead of the pack to put up with having to relearn/wait for everyone else to get the stuff they’re being taught. A good school that’s working with a heterogeneous mix of students encourages small group work and co-teaching so that they stay involved, but it doesn’t sound like that’s the case here. The problem is that then the faster kids see school as easy and rote, and stop getting excited about it. If there’s any other outside, more challenging activities to get kids involved with – enrichment programs, academic competitions, etc. – it can help give them a sense of accomplishment (and realize that middle school isn’t forever, and high school classes will be harder).
My brother used to love books by Isaac Asimov at that age.
I completely agree with the folks who are recommending older classics, like Christie, Asimov, Doyle. They are written for adult level reading skills, but because they were written in a more “innocent” time, they aren’t as graphic, and don’t usually deal with as mature themes as more current adult novels. The other advantage is, there are LOTS of them, and almost all library systems will have them. (Maybe not his school library, but the local public library system should; in many systems, you can search on-line for what’s available at other branches in the system, put a hold on books, and pick them up at your local branch. Ultra cool!)
Depending on his emotional maturity and general make-up, I also agree about Card’s Ender series (including the post-trilogy Shadow books – “Ender’s Shadow” caused me to go back and re-read “Ender’s Game” to compare and contrast.) Card’s Alvin Maker series is also very interesting and fun, and a lot less intense. It could also be a good research jump-off – looking into the events/times/issues depicted in this alternate world in the real world. Why, yes, I do home school, why do you ask? 8)
I was the only kid I know who got in trouble for reading too much during school hours, so maybe I could help here. I’d definitely suggest Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quartet; it might seem a bit childish at first, but it was my favorite series from literally second grade through high school, because every time I read it I found another hidden theme that I hadn’t picked up on before.
My other suggestion is to talk with his teachers about getting some more challenging material to work on once he’s completed the day’s assignment. Yeah, he may not be too thrilled with the idea of having twice as much work as his peers, but it’s one of those pay-off-in-the-long-run type deals; I slept through the first twelve years of my education and came out with almost straight A’s, and as a result I am now a college freshman who doesn’t know how to study. It’s… not good. If you’ve ever seen Heathers, Winona Rider has that line about using her grand IQ to figure out what color lipgloss to wear and how to hit three keggers before curfew? That is me, minus the keggers. I strongly suggest this kid’s parents not let that be him.
I second the E. Nesbit suggestion – wonderful books. And although those lines (and also agreeing with the Agatha Christie suggestions) – try P.G. Wodehouse. The Jeeves and Wooster books are so funny, and the era in which they were set and written guarantees your son won’t stumble on some inappropriate sex scene or whatnot.
Hello!
I had much the same taste when I was a kid. I loved anything by Madeleine L’Engle– not just the more well-known a Wrinkle in Time, but also A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters.
Huh – well, this is a little late to the game – love everyone else’s (elses’ ?)suggestions, especially since all of them reflected my childhood reading tastes pretty much – I’ll have to check out that “Dark is Rising” series that people seem to rave about.
My $0.02:
Jumper – Steven Gould
http://www.amazon.com/Jumper-Novel-Steven-Gould/dp/0765342286
This is an excellent book for tweens/teens (where you’ll find it), but also a gripping read that is frequently recommended for adults (which is why I recently read it and its sequel). A short plot summary would be “runaway teen discovers that he has special powers when put to the test” – the classic empowerment ploltline for that age group, but told in a modern and straightforward voice. A warning: it has certain issues (child abuse, theft, death, terrorism, and an off-screen love scene, if my memory serves) that are handled very well within the book, but might bring up questions for the younger readers. Nothing graphic, but depending on the 11 year old, it might need to wait on the shelf.
Dragonsong – Anne McCaffrey
http://www.amazon.com/Dragonsong-Anne-McCaffrey/dp/0689860080
I second Stephanie’s recommendation for McCaffrey and Pern – this book was Anne McCaffrey’s young adult link to her Pern novels and how I found them. I read the entire series, adult and young adult, all through my preteen and teenage years. This book is about a young girl going off to a school to become a Harper and discovering mini-dragons called fire lizards. The fire lizards are the best part of the book – they can live in a young kid’s imagination for years.
Note: Both of these books (like so many today) have sequels, so would link the 11 year old into others to keep him happy.
I’d heartily endorse the Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper, and add in anything by Zilpha Keatley Snyder — although somewhat girl-focused, they’re mostly in a fantasy vein and really easy to sink into.
Christy and Eleanna — I support the Diana Wynne Jones love! “The Lives of Christopher Chant” was the only book I ever seriously considered stealing from the library (and I was a very well-behaved child). Instead, I just kept on renewing it week after week.
I know this wasn’t exactly the question, but take this for what it’s worth: In elementary school, I was so bored I’d stick a book under my desk and read all day long. Then my parents did me the biggest favor of my life: They yanked me out of regular school and stuck me in a gifted-kid school for grades 6, 7 and 8. Suddenly I wasn’t bored in class, wasn’t picked on for being smart, and had tons of creative outlets. I don’t know whether changing schools is an option in this case, but it might be worth looking into.
As far as books are concerned, I used to nab the summer reading lists for kids a few years older than I was and dive into those.
Good luck.
If he’s already been through a lot of the classic fantasy/sci fi series and wants to branch out a little, I remember reading a lot of James Herriott’s stories at that age, and finding them more interesting than I expected stories about animals to be. I think I also briefly got into my parents’ P.G. Wodehouse collection, and found those books pretty entertaining, if a little repetitive. Finally, the “assigned reading” section at the library always has good stuff. If his library doesn’t have that, he could check out recommended reading lists for college, which usually have some classic stuff that’s PG enough for middle school
Robin McKinley is excellent, but be careful which book of hers you send his way. She has written a re-telling of Donkeyskin (called Deerskin) that is definitely NOT suitable for an 11 year old (deals with rape, incest, etc), and her last book, Sunshine, is likely for an older audience as well. I bet he’d enjoy Ursula LeGuin’s Earthsea Trilogy.
I’m going to echo the recommendations for Susan Cooper and Garth Nix. Ursula K. LeGuin recently published a pair of novels that are smart and aimed right at his age level or a bit above it, called “Gifts” and “Voices,” and both are excellent. My older brother and I were a lot like this–he latched onto sci-fi and I latched onto fantasy, but we did swap books a fair bit. We both read Lord of the Rings around this age, and my brother delved into a lot of the classic SF by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, etc. I read Brian Jacques, Patricia McKillip, Robin McKinley, etc. We both read Ender’s Game and some other Orson Scott Card novels.
There is a lot of really great YA fantasy and sci-fi being published now, too; my younger sisters have enjoyed the Artemis Fowl books, and there’s honestly loads that I would love to read, so you might want to aim him at the teen fiction in a decently-sized bookstore and let him see what piques his interest.
If his school has a good librarian (and many schools don’t, I know), it’s worth his and your while to befriend her/him. My brother and I did this and our absolutely wonderful librarian made a point of acquiring books we’d like and recommending other books for us.
Note on the above recommendatio of Anne McCafferey- the Dragonsong Trilogy is amazing and very age appropriate, but I would hold off on the other novels in the series for a little, or check them out first. There is some sexual violent material that might not be quite appropriate yet.
But onto recommendations: I can’t believe no one has mentioned The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. It’s a fantastic fantasy book full of wordplay that is all about overcoming the doldroms and using imagination. The reading level might be a little below an advanced 11-yo, but I still read it once or twice a year.
And I think that 11 was the age when I first began reading humorous essayists like PJ O’Rourke. Some of them might be boring to him now, but I found plenty of favorites in his travel essays and Parliament of Whores. I still look them over each year and find ones that are much funnier now than they were 8 years ago. Plus the essays are short enough to finish off before everyone else finishes their work.
I second the Terry Pratchett nomination. Because seriously, you can’t get much weirder than Death taking an apprentice, but more than that, Pratchett has produced a LOT of books that your son can eat his way through.
I also recommend Madeleine L’Engle if he’s into sci-fi, starting with A Wrinkle in Time. You might have to explain some of the more dated references (a room full of giant computing machines just sounds weird now), unless you buy him one of the newer editions that explains some of those references in the Afterword.
Finally, don’t be afraid to let him read some banned books. Pelham Library (http://www.pelhamlibrary.blogspot.com/) has lists of banned books, and I find that many of the books on that list were available to me through the Scholastic book orders at school in the sixth grade. Speaking of which, encourage him to order through Scholastic so that he can find books he’d like that maybe you’d never think of yourself.