TheBookSwarm
Ask Question

Recommend pls a non-fiction book for 12yo boy to pick for school. He’s not a very advanced reader

My 12 year old son needs to pick a non-fiction book for school and we’re having a lot of trouble finding one that interests him. He’s not a very advanced reader needless to say and his teacher is no help. It needs to be at least 100 pages long. Any suggestions? Thank you all so much!

Nicole #recommend #fiction #kids #nonfiction

8
Reply

90 Answers

Laura

What are his interests?

0
Reply
NicoleQuestion author

He loves history and archeology. But everything I come up with is just too advanced for him.

0
Laura

Maybe check out Steve Sheinkin.
“Bomb” was popular in my middle school library and he has another one about the attempt to steal Lincoln’s body.

2
Emily

And the teacher wants non fiction specifically.

0
Laura

Those are both non fiction

0
Emily

Oh, I’m sure, I was just wondering if there was some historical fiction that might count.

0
NicoleQuestion author

@Emily no. It has to be nonfiction.

1
Jennifer

Bomb is fabulous, but a challenging read. Phineas Gage might be good.

0
Dotia

My son really enjoyed this one. Lots of drawings and historical information. City by David Macaulay.

0
Reply
Laura

He did one Castle that is also amazing

1
Jen

Following. I have a 10 year old boy… I can never pick out a book for him. If it isn’t a graphic novel, he’s not that interested.

0
Reply
Dotia

Try nonfiction. That’s what a librarian told me a few years ago and my son definitely enjoyed that more than fiction.

0
Peg

@Dotia that’s what her post says.

0
Jen

@Peg, she was replying specifically to me & my son’s love of graphic novels.

1
Dotia

@Jen Have you tried Nick and Tesla or the Frank Einstein series. They are novels but habe lots of pictures so they may not be as intimidating as a “novel” to him.

0
Dotia

Also, the series Who was . . . What was. . . Is great. Biographies and nonfiction historical events. The Gold Rush, World War II, Abe Lincoln, Sally Ride, lots more I can’t remember.

1
Reply
Thania

how about biographies about kids his age. Example, a kid who climbed a cliff free hand

1
Reply
Kelly

Chew on This was interesting, not sure if it’s a high enough reading level

0
Reply
Peg

I hope this will help. http://www.readbrightly.com/nonfiction-books-kids-recommend/

0
Reply
Erin

Who was series

1
Reply
Cheryl

My 7th graders like Chasing Lincoln’s Killer.

1
Reply
NicoleQuestion author

This is right up his alley but someone chose it already and he just told me you can’t have same book as someone else. ?

0
Joanie

My son bought this when he was 8, we were in Washington DC at the Lincoln Memorial (got it in the gift shop) and read before we got home. He loved it and spent days telling us Lincoln trivia.

0
Cheryl

The President’s Been Shot is popular too.

1
Cheryl

Or how about Lincoln’s Grave Robbers? I’ve read all of these and liked them a lot.

1
Michael

How about “ killing the rising son” Bill O’Reilly, a little political but shock full of info.???

0
Reply
Megan

Jean Fritz has a great biography of Alexander Hamilton for that age.

1
Reply
James

Where the Red Fern Grows

0
Reply
Ann

That’s not nonfiction

0
Ann

Way awesome book though! ?

0
James

@Ann Oops, I didn’t look closely.

1
Janice

Gary Paulsen, My Life in Dog Years or How Angel Peterson Got His Name

1
Reply
Patti

That’s one of my favorite books…so good!

0
Kelsey

Night by Eli Weisel. It’s non fiction, a survivor from the Holocaust but it’s a boy rather than a girls point of view which I find is more common.

5
Reply
Donna

Mystery of the Egyptian Scroll by Scott Peters

0
Reply
Rhonda

Many of the Mary Pope Osborne nonfiction titles that support her Magic Treehouse series are just over 100 pages and they are high interest. You can find a list here and then search for them at your local library or bookstore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Tree_House#Non-fiction_books

1
Reply
Rhonda

Also, Lost in the Pacific, 1942 by Tod Olson is quite good and straight forward reading. We are enjoying it at home (with my 9 y.o. son)

0
Reply
Valerie

My son (6th grader) enjoyed Sid Fleischman’s Escape!: The Story of The Great Houdini.

0
Reply
Sari

American Heroes by Edmund S. Morgan
War dog by Damien Lewis
The Family Romanov by Candace Fleming
The Nazi Hunters by Neal Bascomb
Samurai Rising
Witness to the Past
Valley of the Kings
Stonehenge by Caroline Malone

Historical Atlas of the World or something else because many historical atlas might also be interesting. For kids and also for adults. For examples I’m history geek and love those books and encyclopedias because there is many good things to learn about history. World History Atlas or
The Sea Wolves by Lars Brownworth

0
Reply
Lark

I read Profiles in Courage at about that age.

0
Reply
Michael

I think it wonderful that you are exploring reading as opposed to video games. You seem to be a wonderful mother???

0
Reply
Sondy

(I hate that 100-page requirement – as *many* books for that age have precisely 96 pages.)

3
Reply
Patti

I do as well. I also hate the fact that the teacher was not helpful. Did he try the librarian?

1
Sondy

I’m going to post my review to give you more information, not to promote my website – I hope that’s okay. But Go: A Kidd’s Guide to Graphic Design by Chip Kidd would be a great choice. http://www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/go.html

0
Reply
Sondy

A new nonfiction book that’s being discussed as a possible award winner – has 108 pages. (This is almost cheating – there aren’t very many words on a page. But it’s really good.) Her Right Foot, by Dave Eggers. http://www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/her_right_foot.html

0
Reply
Sondy

Would the teacher have trouble with graphic memoirs? (Memoir in comic format) Because the whole March series by John Lewis and co-authors is awesome. http://www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/march_book_3.html

0
Reply
Sarah

This is a somewhat different suggestion. How about Kid Pickers: How to Turn Junk into Treasure by Mike Wolfe? I gave this book to my 9 year old grandson after he and his dad had cleaned out my garage and “picked” their way through it. He was thrilled.

3
Reply
Laura

Omg I LOVE Mike and the Pickers!!!! I want to read this now

1
Sondy

We’ve Got a Job, by Cynthia Levinson, or Watch Out for Flying Kids! by Cynthia Levinson are both really good.

0
Reply
Linda

My Dog Skip

0
Reply
Deborah

Pick a Mark Twain travel book — he wrote several — then make it better by doing a family read aloud of some chapters. The travel books are fun, but also show life as it was then. Reading aloud as a family can turn the “chore” of reading into a fun thing for him. It will keep reading from being an isolating task and help make the book easier to understand, especially if he is a slow reader.

2
Reply
Laura

Love all of this

0
Margaret

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Young Readers Edition)
by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, illustrated by Anna Hymas

This is the exciting story of William Kamkwamba, a young boy from Malawi, and how he used scrap metal to invent a windmill and bring electricity to his tiny village. His journey is inspiring and gives kids a broader, more global perspective. Recommended for 5th grade and up.

2
Reply
Betsy

Biography or autobiography of an athlete he admires. Homer Price and the Doughnut Machine (though it may be less than 100 pages.) Mr. Popper’s Penguins.

0
Reply
Diane

Homer Price and Mr. Popper’s Penguins are fiction.

0
Kim

if he is interested in animals i just started a book called – How the Zebra got its Stripes by Leo Grasset. It is a series of short chapters each of which explains why animals have particular characteristics. chapters include why giraffes have long necks, how dung beetles navigate, and the air conditioning inside termite mounds.
very readable, really interesting and a total of 141 smallish easy to read pages

0
Reply
Robert

He would love the true high-seas survival adventure “Kon Tiki” by Thor Heydrahl (sp).

1
Reply
Carmen

James Patterson has a series of books for teens. Grandson loved them.

0
Reply
Susan

Nonfiction?

0
Lyssa

Number the Stars, out of the Dust, Night. I don’t know if it would scare him or not but Allen Zullo has a bunch of true haunted places stories and they don’t talk about the haunting too much but where the places are located and it’s history

0
Reply
Leslie

A biography of someone in a field of interest for him?

1
Reply
Beckie

The Minecraft: Essential Handbook Book by Stephanie Milton might be a good choice for him

0
Reply
Dylan

There are a series of books called “horrible histories”, that I loved when I was younger. Maybe one from his favourite time period would interest him.

2
Reply
Heather

These are amazing. I’m 41 and still read them ?

1
Elise

Maybe something like “Into Thin Air”?

0
Reply
Jackie

The radioactive Boy Scout. True story

0
Reply
Anne

What are your son’s interests? I’d say go with that, and then look for a non-fiction book at his level with that in mind; i.e., sports, etc.

0
Reply
Peg

There are loads of ideas on here. I used to work in a bookstore and saw dozens of parents agonizing over this, due to the child’s lack of interest. It’s his assignment, not yours. You can show him all these ideas and let him look them up to see a summary of books that catch his eye. You could take him to a bookstore or library with the names of some of these books and ask him to make a choice. You can’t do this for him.

1
Reply
NicoleQuestion author

I’m not choosing for him. I was just at a lost and thought of this wonderful group. I was right in this thinking as the ideas are wonderful. It will ultimately be his chose but I don’t see any harm in asking for ideas to start from.

0
Vickie

Paulson has a short memoir (title escapes me), maybe something about what he’s interested in, sports, camping, music, etc.

0
Reply
Olga

If you haven’t found one yet, consider a QI:the book of general ignorance. It’s factual and hilariously written

0
Reply
Brenda

Try the Capital Mystery series by Ron Roy; or Alvin Ho by Lenore Look—very funny and easy to read. Very confident it is over 100 pages.

0
Reply
Claire

Horrible science or horrible histories? X

0
Reply
Linda

He might like one of The I survived books
Told by a young boy they tell the story of a historical event
http://www.laurentarshis.com/i-survived

1
Reply
Patrick

Horrible Histories is a great series and they are great for reluctant readers. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29421424-horrible-histories

0
Reply
Teresa

Longitude by Dava Sobel. Really really interesting story of the search for a way to know where you were longitudinally. It took centuries. One idea involved “magic” powders and stabbing a dog on land and then the dog on the ship would bark/whine. It was finally solved by a man who made perfectly precise clocks. There is even an illustrated version of the book. I HIGHLY recommend it.

0
Reply
Dawna

The young readers version of “Boys in the Boat” may be a good pick. I loved the original version.

0
Reply
Karen

Kingdom by the sea by Robert westall. My son loves it

0
Reply
Dan

Hunter s Thompson. He got me into reading as a teenager. Parental guidance advised.

0
Reply
Michele

Chasing Lincoln’s Killer is a high interest young adult nonfiction book. The author also has one about the assassination of JFK. Both are good!

1
Reply
Syntha

Would a non-fiction graphic novel work? What about something like the Guinness Book of World Records or a Who was book? Go to your library with your son and let the librarian take you around and suggest some things

0
Reply
Jackie

Rick geary

0
Amber

What about the “Who Was/What Was/Where is”series? They are nonfiction chapter books. The ones I have purchased for my classroom are written at about a 3rd or 4th grade level, but my Middle School students find them interesting.

http://www.whowasbookseries.com/who-was/

0
Reply
Louise

The Horrible Histories series by Terry Deary are very popular. They cover a wide range of historical periods so there are plenty to choose from.

0
Reply
Robert

http://www.readbrightly.com/nonfiction-books-kids-recommend/

0
Reply
Laura

Tomie De Paola is a children’s author and he has some autobiographies that are excellent and not too difficult.

0
Reply
Laura
1
Clovia

“Relish: My Life In the Kitchen”, by Lucy Knisley. A coming-of-age memoir by a comic artist who grew up the daughter of a chef and a foodie.

0
Reply
Jackie

Her books are great

0
Clovia

Non fiction books for 7th grade:
<< https://imaginationsoup.net/nonfiction-books-for-12-year-olds/ >>

0
Reply
Leave a Answer Cancel

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Loading Please wait
Log in
Register
Categories
  • get the book
  • questionnaire
  • recommend
  • review
Genres
animal art biography business chick lit classics comics contemporary cookbooks crime detective fantasy fiction gay and lesbian graphic novel historical fiction history horror humor and comedy kids languages manga memoir music mystery nonfiction novel paranormal philosophy poetry psychology religies religion romance scary science science fiction self help spirituality sports suspense thriller travel young adult young adults
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms and Conditions

2019 © TheBookSwarm