My oldest son's reading didn't take off till grade 3 but the thing that did it was Rick Riordan books: Percy Jackson and everything else. There's a nice series called Spirit Animals written by a bunch of big name YA authors that he really liked as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 2nd grader is also on HP Book 4 and unlikely to be allowed to read further into the series because the themes get too dark.

Other choices are Percy Jackson, Little House, and Lemony Snicket.

OP here. I never read HP, but I saw the movies. At what age would you allow a child to read past book 4? My son loves to read, but we've had trouble finding books that are on his level and also age appropriate.

PP here. It probably depends on the kid. My 2nd grader is a little sensitive, so even Book 3 was a bit of a stretch emotionally. We decided to do Book 4 now but wait until at least middle of 3rd grade for Book 5 because the traumatic event in Book 5 is really traumatic, and Book 6 even more so obviously.

Note on the Genius Files. My DD attempted them in 2nd, and was able to read them, but got freaked out by the villain threatening to boil the heroes in oil - and more generally the constant death threats. Even though she has now made it through all the Potter violence 2 years later, she won't touch Genius Files.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My 2nd grader is also on HP Book 4 and unlikely to be allowed to read further into the series because the themes get too dark.

Other choices are Percy Jackson, Little House, and Lemony Snicket.

OP here. I never read HP, but I saw the movies. At what age would you allow a child to read past book 4? My son loves to read, but we've had trouble finding books that are on his level and also age appropriate.

We stopped our second grader after book 3 for awhile. She instead read a bunch of other books that she loved, then read HP 1-3 again. By then she was at the end of second grade, and we let her finish the HP series.

FWIW, she tends to scare easily with movies, but said she "couldn't imagine things that were too scary," so the books were fine and she loved them. But she was definitely scared by the second movie, so she said she wanted to stop there. Hasn't seen any of the movies after that.

Here are some other books she loved during second grade:

Genius Files series: https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B00NE3PZVE/ref=dp_st_0061827665

Masterminds (and the sequel): https://www.amazon.com/Masterminds-Gordon-Korman/dp/0062299999/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472948468&sr=8-1&keywords=masterminds

Whiz Pop Chocolate Shop (and the sequel): https://www.amazon.com/Whizz-Pop-Chocolate-Shop/dp/0385743025/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1472948506&sr=1-1&keywords=whiz+pop+chocolate+shop

Astrotwins (and the sequel): https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B017KK30ZE/ref=dp_st_1481415468

Almost Super (and the sequel): https://www.amazon.com/Almost-Super-Marion-Jensen/dp/0062209620/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472948662&sr=8-1&keywords=almost+super

Bliss (and the next two): https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B00NE6WYAQ/ref=dp_st_0062084240

Terrible Twins (and the new sequel): https://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B00YXG873O/ref=dp_st_1419714910

Plus the "I Survived" series, some in the "Who Is" series, and a lot of graphic novels and straight up picture books.

There's some amazing stuff out there for strong readers beyond HP and other 200+ page middle grade novels.

This is one of my favorite sites for finding book ideas:

http://www.whatdowedoallday.com/books-for-kids

And this person's book reviews:

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6153585.Betsy_Bird

Percy Jackson, Rangers Apprentice, Pseudonymous Bosch, Benedict Society are all worth trying. Lloyd Alexander and Susan Cooper were written longer ago but are still very good.

My son loved the Percy Jackson books after Harry Potter, and also read them in 2nd grade. Also Ranger's Apprentice series.
With regard to what is appropriate, I felt that as long as the books were intended for youth as opposed to adults, I was OK with him reading "ahead". He read all of the HP in second grade and handled them fine. He still won't watch the movies, though!

I'm in the same boat. It's tough, because you want him to read but just handing over bigger books written for older readers isn't exactly appropriate. For example, my kid was blowing through Diary of a Wimpy Kid but it was kind of mature and he was afraid of some chapters. I feel some Roald Dahl are even a bit dark, and even the Ramona books spoil the Santa Claus thing and this is probably his last year of pretending to believe.

We have been having good luck with lots of Choose Your Own Adventure, Hardy Boys, and series after series after series. Some hits have been Bad Kitty, My Weird School (there are something like 50 of these), and shorter series' that he'll blow through in a weekend like 13 Story Treehouse and Arnie the Donut. You just kind of have to plow through the library and take what you can find. We buy books plenty of the time, but we borrow so so so many more.

Anonymous wrote:My 2nd grader is also on HP Book 4 and unlikely to be allowed to read further into the series because the themes get too dark.

Other choices are Percy Jackson, Little House, and Lemony Snicket.

OP here. I never read HP, but I saw the movies. At what age would you allow a child to read past book 4? My son loves to read, but we've had trouble finding books that are on his level and also age appropriate.

My 2nd grader is also on HP Book 4 and unlikely to be allowed to read further into the series because the themes get too dark.

Other choices are Percy Jackson, Little House, and Lemony Snicket.

Magic treehouse series.

Percy Jackson, Lemoncillos library

I liked my side of the mountain around that age.

Chris D'Lacey's dragon books
Wayside School books
Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher, and others by Bruce Coville
Encyclopedia Brown
Diane Duane's Young Wizard books

What fun this is to think about!

At that age, my son read:
- The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
- Beowulf, the Morpurgo version
- The Longest Day, the eye-witness account of D-Day by Cornelius Ryan
- Boy and Going Solo, the 2 autobiographies from Roald Dahl, as well as the rest of his books
- The Chronicles of Prydain by Lloyd Alexander (about the same as Narnia, which for some reason he didn't like)

My son is in second grade. This summer he started Harry Potter and is on book 4 already. He enjoys goosebumps, but reads each book in a day.

I suspect he won't finish Harry Potter for a while, but I'm looking for some other suggestions since he likes to read more than one book at a time.

We're reading the Chronicles of Narnia out loud right now.