Maybe Hatchet by Gary Paulsen for the boy.
We're Literary 2: To Read Makes Our Speaking English Good
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
If he likes Harry Potter, maybe he'll like the Lemony Snicket books? Or Artemis Fowl? Or the other three thousand similar series?
For the 12 y.o. boy, maybe Chabon's Summerland which is both baseball and magic and age appropriate.
Yeah, maybe, Cindy...Paula Danziger? Funny and nsm About The Sex.
Both my brothers ate up biographies of sports figures at that age. If you found out what teams he likes, you could see if there is a good bio of one its star players.
Both my brothers ate up biographies of sports figures at that age. If you found out what teams he likes, you could see if there is a good bio of one its star players.
This is true of Emmett as well. He loves reading about Jackie Robinson and Honus Wager and Babe Ruth. I also enjoyed getting big omnibus collections of 100 Greatest Sports Heroes type things.
Not just bios of sports figures. There's quite a bit of sports-related stuff out there that isn't bios.
I'll go out on a limb with the 15YO -- older (less gruesome) mysteries? The first "grown-up" books I read (and ok, I was more like 12 or 13 at the time) were by Ellery Queen, Agatha Christie, and Erle Stanley Gardner.
Hmm - maybe some of the earlier funnier Sharon McCrumbs? Highland Laddie gone? Sick of Shadows. And the 15 year old is a Southerner too, in fact not too far from Monticello.
Yeah, Fred, good call!
I'm pretty sure I was reading Georgette Heyer when I was 15 or so--maybe something like These Old Shades, The Grand Sophy, or Frederica.