Great Guys
Suggestions from Mt. Lebanon Public Library, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
www.mtlebanonlibrary.org
Spend some time with the guys in these books.
For older readers. Shelved in children’s fiction under the author’s last name.
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Lloyd Alexander
-The Book of Three
Taran begins an epic adventure in a mythical Celtic land. First in The Prydain Chronicles
-Westmark trilogy
In the kingdom of Westmark, a boy fleeing for his life joins forces with 3 mysterious companions.
David Almond
-Skellig
Michael finds a mysterious stranger who is something like a bird and something like an angel living in the garage of his new home.
Avi
-Crispin and the Cross of Lead
Falsely accused of murder, an orphaned peasant boy in 14-century England flees his village and meets a juggler who holds a dangerous secret.
John Bellairs
-The House with a Clock in its Walls
Lewis and his uncle must stop the ticking doomsday clock hidden in the walls of their mansion.
Edward Bloor
-Tangerine
A nearly blind boy understands the world around him better than others.
Betsy Byars
-Trouble River
Dewey and his grandmother flee from hostile Indians on a homemade raft.
Joan Carris
-When the Boys Ran the House
Their mother is sick and their father is out of town so four brothers decide to take over the responsibilities of running the house.
Gennifer Choldenko
-Al Capone Does My Shirts
When his father gets a job there as a prison guard, twelve-year-old Moose moves with his family to Alcatraz Island in 1935.
Eoin Colfer
-Artemis Fowl series
A 12 year-old criminal mastermind plots to get some Fairy gold. First of a series.
Suzanne Collins
-Gregor the Overlander
Eleven year-old Gregor and his 2 year-old sister are pulled into a strange world beneath New York City where they trigger a battle that involves the people, bats, rats, and spiders that populate this underworld. Book 1 of The Underland Chronicles.
Susan Cooper
-The Dark is Rising series
Will Stanton must keep the world safe from evil.
Frank Cottrell Boyce
- Cosmic
12-year old Liam looks like he's thirty, and that leads to an out-of-this-world adventure when he pretends to be a Dad.
Kevin Crossley-Holland
-The Seeing Stone
A magical stone helps a medieval boy see images of King Arthur, whose life his own strangely parallels. Book one in The Arthur Trilogy.
Christopher Paul Curtis
-Bud, Not Buddy
During the Great Depression, Bud runs away to search for a famous bandleader who he believes to be his father.
Frances O'Roark Dowell
-Chicken Boy
After his mother’s death Tobin’s life seems to be more and more a mess until he befriends a boy and his brother who love raising chickens.
Joanne DuPrau
-City of Ember
In a dark underground city with no natural light, failing electricity, and dwindling supplies, two friends try to find a way out. First of a series.
Nancy Farmer
-The House of the Scorpion
In the future, the young clone of the 142-year-old leader of a drug empire is given special protections and privileges in order to prolong the leader’s life.
Paula Fox
-One-Eyed Cat
A boy deals with his guilt after disobeying his father.
Cornelia Funke
-The Thief Lord
Two runaway brothers get protection from Venice’s “Thief Lord.”
John Reynolds Gardiner
-Stone Fox
A boy enters an important dog sled race.
Jean Craighead George
-My Side of the Mountain
A New York City boy runs away to the mountains with only a penknife, a ball of cord, some flint and steel, and the clothes on his back.
Margaret Peterson Haddix
-Among the Hidden series
In a future when the law limits a family to only 2 children, Luke- a third child- has lived all his life in isolation and fear, until another "third" convinces him that the government is wrong.
Gerald Hausman
-Tom Cringle series
A 14 year-old lieutenant in the British Navy faces slave ships, sharks, battles, pirates, and a swampy wilderness in this historical adventure.
Carl Hiaasen
-Hoot
In this suspenseful and funny book, 2 boys band together to save some endangered owls from a proposed construction site. Also Flush by this author.
S. E. Hinton
-Rumble Fish
A junior high boy longs to be like his tough older brother, the Motorcycle Boy.
Will Hobbs
-Downriver
Rebellious teenagers daringly run the white water in the Grand Canyon. Other titles by this author.
Anthony Horowitz
-Stormbreaker
A teenage secret agent works with Britain's top secret intelligence agency MI6 to solve international mysteries. First in the Alex Rider series.
-Diamond Brother mysteries
Two bungling teenage brother detectives fight crime in these funny mysteries.
Diana Wynn Jones
-The Lives of Christopher Chant
The boyhood adventures of Christopher Chant, who discovers he is in training to become the head controller of magic in the world -and who also has nine lives.
Watt Key
- Alabama Moon
For as long as ten-year-old Moon can remember, he has lived out in the forest in a shelter with his father. When Moon's father dies, Moon follows his father's last instructions: to travel to Alaska to find others like themselves.
Iain Lawrence
-The Wreckers
A 14 year old boy discovers an evil secret about the town he is stranded in after being shipwrecked. First in The High Seas Trilogy . (also other books by this author)
Sonia Levitin
-The Mark of Conte
Registered as two people because of a computer error, a boy decides to assume that double identity with the help of his eccentric friends.
Penelope Lively
-The Ghost of Thomas Kempe
The ghost of a seventeenth-century sorcerer tries to make a boy his apprentice.
Geraldine McCaughrean
-Kite Rider
In 13th-century China, twelve-year-old Haoyou has life-changing adventures when he takes to the sky as a circus kite rider .
Hilary McKay
-Dog Friday
A 10 year-old boy finds an abandoned dog in this very funny book.
Walter Dean Myers
-Scorpions
Twelve year old Jamal, the new leader of the Harlem gang the Scorpions, finds that his enemies treat him differently when he acquires a gun- until a tragedy occurs.
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
-Shiloh
When a boy finds an abused dog near his West Virginia home, he must decide whether to keep or return the animal. First in the series.
Jenny Nimmo
-Midnight for Charlie Bone
At a school for the descendants of the Red King, Charlie Bone, who can hear voices in pictures, meets other students who have powers which they use for good or evil. Book one in The Children of the Red King series.
Gary Paulsen
- Hatchet
A boy is lost in the wilderness with only a hatchet to aid him. First in a series.
-Harris and Me
A city boy spends a memorable summer on his cousin’s farm.
Richard Peck
-The Teacher’s Funeral
In 1904, when his teacher “hauls off and dies,” a boy’s life is disrupted when his sister takes over his one room school. A funny story about turn-of-the-century rural life. Others titles by this author.
Robert Newton Peck
-Soup series
Funny escapades in the life of a young boy and his friend Soup in 1920s Vermont.
Rodman Philbrick
-The Young Man and the Sea
In order to earn some money for himself and his father, 12-year-old Skiff undertakes a
dangerous ocean voyage alone to try to catch a huge bluefin tuna.
-Freak the Mighty
A learning disabled boy and his new friend, Freak, whose birth defect affects his body but not his mind, find that together they make a powerful team.
Willo Davis Roberts
-The View from the Cherry Tree
Rob witnesses a murder, but no one believes him– except the murderer. Other titles by this author.
Louis Sachar
-Holes
Cursed by bad luck, Stanley Yelnats finds a true friend and a treasure at a correctional camp.
Gary D. Schmidt
-Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy
In turn-of-the-century Maine, a minister’s son befriends a girl from a poor island community founded by former slaves that his town wants to change into a tourist spot.
Neal Shusterman
-The Schwa was Here
An eighth-grader befriends the Schwa, a boy who goes unnoticed by nearly everyone until he begins to believe he is invisible.
William Sleator
-Interstellar Pig
Barney's boring vacation improves when he joins three exotic neighbors who are
addicted to a game they call "Interstellar Pig."
Elizabeth George Speare
-Sign of the Beaver
When he is left alone to guard the family's wilderness home in eighteenth-century Maine, local Indians teach a boy how to survive.
Jerry Spinelli
-Wringer
A boy must decide whether or not to be a wringer at his town’s annual Pigeon Day.
-Maniac Magee
After the death of his parents, a boy’s life becomes legendary when he seems to accomplish awe-inspiring feats .
Robert Louis Stevenson
-Treasure Island
A treasure map leads an innkeeper’s son to a private treasure.
Robb White
-Deathwatch
A college student left in the middle of the desert without clothes, food or water is hunted by an armed madman.
N.D. Wilson
-Leepike Ridge
While his widowed mother continues to search for him, eleven-year-old Tom, presumed dead after drifting away down a river, finds himself trapped in a series of underground caves with another survivor and a dog, and pursued by murderous treasure-hunters.
Elizabeth Winthrop
-The Castle in the Attic series
An ancient Roman coin sends a young boy back to the Middle Ages.
Laurence Yep
-Dragonwings
In 1909 San Francisco, a Chinese immigrant and his son build and fly a biplane.
These authors also write about the adventures of great guys:
Matt Christopher (sports)
James Lincoln & Christopher Collier (historical fiction)
Bruce Coville (humor)
Franklin Dixon (Hardy Boys mysteries)
Dan Gutman (humor)
Will Hobbs (adventure)
Gordon Korman (humor)
Iain Lawrence (historical fiction/adventure)
Mike Lupica (sports)
Gary Paulsen (adventure and humor)
Jon Scieszka (humor)
Al Slote (sports)
Look for these and other great books in
The Children's Library
Mt. Lebanon Public Library
16 Castle Shannon Blvd.
Pittsburgh, PA 15228
412/531-1913 4.06
www.mtlebanonlibrary.org
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