Books in a Series for Young Voracious Readers - Part 1

Some children read very quickly and are always asking for more books. Although all my children loved reading, two had insatiable reading habits. They were/are both active and have interests in many different areas so it wasn't as if they sat around all day reading. They just had the ability to read extremely quickly.
When children are still quite young it is sometimes difficult to find suitable reading material for their age. I didn't want to give my voracious readers any old book to stop them harrassing me, although at times I told them to go back and re-read some.
This is the beginning of some posts with lists of books in a series that I felt comfortable using with our children when they were around the ages of  eight to ten and that they all enjoyed at one stage or another.

I'd already mentioned the Redwall series for reluctant readers but they are great books for the book gobblers also as there are a number of them and they are well written.
In this post I'll concentrate on another family favourite:

The Biggles books are a series of books (one hundred and two altogether) written between 1932 and 1968 by W.E. Johns (1893-1968). Some are difficult to find as they're out of print but others have been reprinted in the past few years. They are also suitable for reluctant readers, especially boys, and have a wide appeal for a variety of ages. We know a number of adults who still have their boyhood Biggles' collections.
W.E. Johns was a British fighter pilot during WW1 and his writing reflects his knowledge of aircraft and air battles. His books are adventurous, fun to read and are free from pessimism.




Moozle loves this series and has become quite an expert on old war planes as I found out when she got into a conversation with her brother's orthodontist, an aviation enthusiast & expert on model planes. Here is what she said when I asked her which ones she would recommend reading first:

"The first book in the Biggles series by W.E.Johns you should read is The Boy Biggles.
A good book of adventures of when Biggles was a boy in India.

Then,

Biggles Goes to School - Biggles’ adventures when he’s in school.

Biggles Learns to Fly - it’s situated in WW1, when Biggles learns to fly a Camel, (an aircraft!) in Squadron 266.

Biggles Flies East -

The head office tells Biggles to go as a spy into German territory, relying on the fact that someone has mistaken Biggles for another person who is on the German side.

‘The General’s face was grave when he returned and sat down at his desk, and he eyed Biggles speculatively.

“Now, Bigglesworth,” he commenced, “I am going to have a very serious talk with you, and I want you to listen carefully. While I have been away I have examined the situation from every possible angle, I believe that Broglace’s next move will be to will be to make a definite offer to you, provided you do not give him cause for alarm. If our assumption is correct, he will suggest that you work for him, which means, of course, for Germany; I would like you to except that offer.” 

The Camels are Coming -

This is first book W.E. Johns wrote and takes place during WW1 when Biggles was a fighter pilot in France.

Biggles in the Orient -

Biggles is sent to figure the reason why machines are just suddenly falling every day, on a normal flight. The place where’s its happening is Dum Dum, an aircraft station.

The other books can be read in any order, except some of them are in WW1, in between the wars, and some of them are in WW2.

 Biggles Takes a Holiday -

Biggles’s friend Angus Mackail has disappeared into a valley, which is advertised as ‘Paradise Valley,’ in South America. Biggles sets out to find him with his trio of friends, Bertie Lissie, Algernon Montgomery Lacey (or Algy Lacey) and ‘Ginger’ Hebblethwaite (he has red hair)."

Thank you to Miss Moozle aged 10 years for her thoughts above. 


A bit about the author from a flyleaf of one of his books:

Captain W.E. Johns was born in Hertfordshire in 1893. He flew with the Royal Flying Corps in the First World War and made a daring escape from a German prison camp in 1918. Between the wars he edited Flying and Popular Flying and became a writer for the Ministry of Defence.


For a listing of the books in the order they were written see here.







 

Books in a Series for Early & Late Beginning Readers

Some children jump quickly from the beginning stage of reading to where they can read more challenging books. Most of mine made the leap fairly quickly within a short space of time but a couple needed a longer period to transition. One of them took a few years to get to this stage.
During this stage children can be inspired to read more if they connect with characters in a story and know that there are more books with those same characters. Books in a series are really helpful for any child who has got the idea of reading but isn't yet reading fluently and confidently.

Books for Younger Children

Billy & Blaze by C.W.Anderson (1891-1971)

There are at least eight books in this series in print and Billy & Blaze is the first one. Sensitive stories about the adventures of a boy and his beloved horse and written by someone who knew a good deal about horses and how to care for them. Blaze Shows the Way is a sweet story where Billy & Blaze get alongside Tommy & Dusty and teach them the teamwork needed for jumping. Approximate age of interest - 8 years and under.

The Spindles books by Barry Chant

These have an Australian setting and suit readers aged about 8 to 10 years. I've written about them here.


The Boxcar Children series by Gertrude Chandler Warner (1890-1979)

This is the first book in a series of nineteen and is available online at Project Gutenberg.
The books contain about 150 pages in good size print and they are great for younger readers. There's a list of the books and dates written here but it's best to read this book first and (I prefer to) stick to the books that were published during the author's lifetime:

Illustrations from the original book in the series:

 


When the fluency stage is taking a while...

I wanted to also mention books for older children who are not reading confidently yet. 
One of our children was a late reader and it took a few years for him to read fluently. He needed books appropriate for his age. Books such as Billy & Blaze just weren't suitable, but he was inspired to keep reading when we gave him books in a series that were complex enough to interest him, but had characters that were familiar to him. The familiarity, knowing a little of what was to be expected, removed the barrier of starting a new book because he had already 'made friends' with its inhabitants.  

The other day I asked my son, Hoggy, who spent the longest time gaining reading fluency, what books had helped him the most during this time. Dare I say his answer was the Tintin series??
Tintin by Hergé started out in 1929 and the author continued to write about Tintin and his adventures  for over 50 years. His work portrays a great variety of geographical locations, political content and cultural situations. 

 
All my children loved these books (which I don't think are in the same category as comics) but for Hoggy they weren't just entertainment. The illustrations made him curious enough to want to put an effort in to try to read the text, plus the stories were adventurous and interesting enough in their own right to keep him persistent in his reading.
Some of the Tintin books are better than others & here is a list from someone at Amazon because my children can't agree on their favourites. Hoggy reckons The Adventures of Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, the first in the series was his favourite, which was placed second last on the link above. Moozle said she likes them all but mentioned the one above. Adults enjoy Tintin but are quick to point out the author's 'incorrectness.' Children just read them and enjoy the stories without taking on the views and prejudices of a different generation - that's been our experience, at least.

These hardback copies have three books in one volume. 

Some other books in a series that have enough substance for slightly older readers who are still working on fluency:

The Sugar Creek Gang series by Paul Hutchens

These books have been around for many years and my boys loved them around the ages of 8 to 10 years but they would be suitable even up to around age 12 or even older for a later reader. The first book was published in 1940 and the last in 1970 and there are 36 books in the series (see here for a list of them). Each book features the 'gang' and my boys became familiar with the characters and they each had their favourites. 
The books were re-printed around 1995 and some changes were made to make them more 'acceptable' to the present day (I think some references to 'getting a licking' etc were taken out). We have some of the books from the pre-politically correct days but the later versions still have some merit, I think, although the older books would be my preference.
Just be aware that there's a series called 'The New Sugar Creek Gang' which are not by Paul Hutchens. 
Sugar Creek is a real location in Indiana, USA.
 

 The books below are Moody Press editions published in 1967 & 1973:

 The Indian Cemetry below is one of the revised editions published in 1998 with changes ('minor' according to the website I linked to above) made by the author's daughter, Pauline Hutchens.

Childhood of Famous Americans are a series of books by various authors about different people but the series is consistent in the way the subjects are approached and in the level of writing, which is tartgetted to ages 8 to 12 years of age.

These fictionalised biographies are about the childhoods of famous Americans or people who eventually identified with America. Albert Einstein, for instance, who fled Hitler's Germany as an adult and later became an American citizen.There's a legion of books in this series, and although some of them would be more interesting for children in America, there are many individuals who have universal appeal. The books are around 190 pages in length and are printed in a largish font which makes for easy on the eyes reading. Black & white illustrations throughout.
Some of my children's favourites in this series are:

Thomas A. Edison, Neil Armstrong, Clara Barton, Henry Ford, Buffalo Bill, Daniel Boone, Benjamin Franklin, Harriet Tubman, Wilbur and Orville Wright and Albert Einstein.

Viking Quest series by Lois Walfrid Johnson - exciting stories of Viking times by a Christian author. These books are recommended for readers up to about 12 years of age but reluctant older readers would enjoy them also. There are five that I am aware of.

The Redwall Series by Brian Jacques

Warning! These books are highly addictive.  "Wot,wot!'  I just couldn't read them aloud but Dad read one to the boys when they were younger (he also had a good laugh over a couple he read on his own) and Hoggy liked them so much he got stuck into them all. Even though they are quite challenging for children who are not yet fluent readers they were a wonderful incentive for our son to be drawn into a higher level of reading. Filled with all the stuff boys like - food, feasting, songs, more food, quirky language, humour, fights and adventure.

I was very interested to read the author's background and his introduction to classic poetry at the age of fourteen. As a child growing up under the shadow of the second World War in Great Britain, he went through the food shortages and nightly air raids and his stories remedied those concerns he had as a young lad. Filled with elaborate feasting and song, the triumph of good over evil is a strong element running through his books.





According to my resident Redwall experts, the following six books lay a foundation for the Redwall series. You can then read the other books to fill in all the details as they all branch off from the these.

1) Martin the Warrior
2) Mossflower
3) Redwall
4) Mattimeo
5) Salamandstrom
6) The Long Patrol





We have The Redwall Cookbook also and the recipes are not too bad and it actually got our less interested boys into the kitchen experimenting.

Some suggestions to those who have older reluctant or struggling readers:

* Don't despair 

* Check out Dianne Craft's Website especially Smart Kids Who Don't Want to Read

and Can Learning Difficulties be Prevented? We didn't have any access to information such as this when Hoggy was learning to read but I think part of his difficulty was visual. 

*  I've mentioned The Spalding Method in a previous post (scroll down the page a bit) and highly recommend this. It can be used with any child and is also very good for children who have lousy spelling.

* Read aloud books that are beyond their ability - every day. If you're not able to do this, get some quality audio books. Hoggy listened to Treasure Island when he was recovering from being sick and a few days later he took the book off the shelf and slowly worked his way through it. This was a significant shift for him.

* Make sure you require regular oral narration after you read to them. This was a powerful tool for us and although it is often difficult to begin with, it yields great returns over a period of time.

* Let them hear beautiful language from various types of literature - classic books, poetry, Bible. I've always made a point of reading aloud books that would be a challenge for my children to read independently, books they probably wouldn't have chosen themselves, or those which are high quality but need a little editing here and there.

* Play board games such as Articulate, Boggle and others that connect to language.

* This is just something I've thought about in regards to my son when I think back. It may not be applicable to your child but if they are embarrassed about reading aloud & there are younger siblings who read more fluently than they do, their reading aloud will probably not be a true reflection of their reading ability.




Coming up soon...books for the insatiable book gobblers 10 years and under.