When your area of specialization results in questions you really can't answer

Books for boys between 8 and 10

First, my summer got busy and most of my creativity is now taken up with planning for classes. But, I’m going to complete an entry every weekend as a way to hold myself accountable, which is something we often have to do in my profession—create our own deadlines.  

So, as a professor, do you find that people come to you with questions that may or may not be related to your field of specialization? 

As someone who is in the field of young adult literature (not children's literature, by the way) and a mother of a son, I often get asked (even occasionally) for book suggestions for boys. Before I had a son, I would have not been able to answer that question well--and would have probably turned to research to answer it. 

That’s an easy question for me now and as he gets older, I feel myself becoming a children's lit expert. I recommend for boys younger than 8 (but getting out of picture books-I'll save that for another post)—anything by Mo Willems, Captain Underpants, Ricky Ricotta, and Jim Davis' Garfield. These are books Emery still goes to on his own for independent reading.

I think that most boys his age lean toward graphic novels and hybrid choices. Emery was a fan of manga titles for a while (Pokemon and Zelda, in particular), but he also likes a few that are lesser known.

Here’s a list of some of the ones he’s read on his own (I tried to put them in the order that he read them):

Stone Rabbit, the Lunch Lady Series, Loud Boy, Bone, The Bean World series, Big Nate, Stickman Odyssey, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Bad Island.

Recently, I was asked for books that boys would read that are not graphicy/ hybrid-type novels. I’ve always just relished the moments when Emery picks up a book on his own and reads it, no matter what the format, as we read books without images every night, but it’s a valid point. What texts can serve as bridges between the graphic and non-graphic?

Here are just a few Emery picked up (well, I gave them to him) and he finished:

How to train your dragon

Buckley’s Nerds series

Mark of Athena (anything by Riordan is a winner)

Harry Potter (of course) and Tales of Beetle the Bard

Herbert’s Wormhole

Beware of the Ninja Weenies (a little creepy, according to Emery, but he read it)

Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide to not Reading

You might notice that these are all fiction titles. Before Emery, I was under the impression that boys mostly read non-fiction. I have not had good luck with non-fiction and Emery. I tried Bomb: The Race to make and steal the world’s most dangerous weapon—which I and most of my children’s book club thought was awesome, but he didn’t get past the first few chapters.

Any suggestions for non-fiction for boys?