There's a young teenager in my house! Oh My!

He's saving up his money for some big ticket item and I'm running out of extra chores to help him earn. We live in the suburbs and all the typical menial jobs I'd do when I was his age just aren't an option here.

I had the thought that I would be willing to pay him to read a book and then have a thoughtful discussion with me about it.

I'm thinking more along the lines of non-fiction with topics about history, critical thinking, world religions, biographies, etc. I'm even open to solid self-help type titles.

Any suggestions?

YES! A chance to vent my spleen on the topic of 'non-fiction' books!!

Basically it is my opinion that there is no such thing as a 'non-fiction' book.

Especially autobiographies!

It is an awesome responsibility, having the power to direct a young person's reading. I wish you well. I'd offer suggestions, but they'd be based on my life and you wouldn't want to do that to someone you love.

touché

No, but that's a great idea!

You sound like a terrific mother. :)

My children loved Harry Potter and Orson Scott Card at that age. Not so much into biographies unless it was of their own choosing.

One of my children did a paper on the Mountain Meadows Massacre while a junior in high school, that opened our family's eyes to that fateful event. That was though from his own initiation.

I prefer documentaries and movies based on actual events to reading about them. Finding books he can relate to at his age is what I would find challenging.

Good luck, sure there'll be many fine suggestions coming from other board posters.

:)

if he's inclined to be educated and may be a professional in the community, then I would suggest that he strive for excellence with his high school. Granted here in Utah there are a select few really good high schools (on the East side) and the rest are lets just say to put it politically correct ... full of poverty. The really good high schools have ACT prep classes and actual advance placement classes, of course with the common core crap where the government wants everyone to be average, a lot of this may be going away, or is even becoming against the law to strive for high achievement.

Extrinsic motivation is great for teenagers (more parents should do it). Get him signed up for and pay him for high scores in AP Calculus. Get him reading college level material where he may be interested in.

But for specific books I've read that are suitable I would start with:
the Old Testament:
Pilgrims Progress by William Bradford.
The White Indian Boy (if he's from Shoshone Country here in Utah)
Autobiography and Farmers Alminac by Benjamin Franklin
Autobiography of Fredarick Douglas
Time Machine, by Orson Wells
Harry Potter
Lion Witch and Wardrobe
Something about English royal history with pictures from William through Henry VIII, Elizabeth, Mad King George, Victoria and Albert and so on.
Malcome X wrote a wonderful biography at his death but has adult themes that are very real in it.
Any John Adams Biography would teach loyalty, thrift, and fidelity.
Tom Sawyer or huckleberry finn
Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Young at Home by Clarissa Decker
Rald dahls collection is good as well: Charlie and Chocolate factory, matilda, James and Giant Peach

This is where I'd begin

also Little house in Big woods is a great book even for boys
Train to potevka is good too
To kill a mocking bird,

and for short stories I would look at Rip Van Winkle
Anything Edgar Allen Poe
Animal Farm

A book that I think he would really enjoy is The Lightning Thief. Middle schoolers love it and it brings Greek mythology alive. Gary Paulson is also a popular, respected author. He writes wilderness adventure stories that many boys enjoy. Check with your son's teachers as I'm sure they will have many great suggestions.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/21/2016 06:03PM by summer.

I'd read history book for pay...don't know if my attention span would tolerate most other forms of literature.

RB

I will talk to my kid friend and get some suggestions. Another thought is maybe learning something very useful. CODING. It is going to be a more and more needed skill for kids today. A good way to begin might be Roblox. That is how my kid friend taught himself. There are some good books on it. I am a dumb old adult so I am going to ask Santa to bring me this

http://ozobot.com/products?utm_campaign=Sale&utm_medium=Search%2BBranded&utm_source=AdWords&sniply=v0r6y&gclid=Cj0KEQjw0dy4BRCuuL_e5MeqmNABEiQAq8iNI7eaCMvrlTyTUeGSkPyvYr1hJgJgHlCoMI-yCexlQjYaAtLW8P8HAQ

Another thought, do you have any older neighbors or ones with a pack of little kids? If you were close to me I would be happy to pay your kid to do some weeding for me. My kid used to make money that way in the summer.

Hmmm... Things I read as a teenager:

I did like my books a bit violent back then. These are all fiction but have great topics for discussion.

Kim - Kipling (Racism, religion, imperialism, and history) This one is my top choice.

Dune (politics, manipulation & eugenics)

Last of the Mohicans (History, Language, & Politics)

Three Musketeers (Politics, Western Honor & Integrity)

Musashi -Eiji Yoshikawa (Japanese version of Honor, integrity, & History).

The Walking Drum - Louis L'amour (History, importance of Education, politics, & honor).

Haunted Mesa -Louis L'amour (Totalitarian governments, pseudo-gods, & courage).

If you notice I included two Louis L'amour books at the end. These two of his best ones that he wrote toward the end of his life.

I like this idea.

Have you considered finding service opportunities in the community that you would be willing to pay him for?

It seemed like my mother was forever bothering me with demands to scour the bathtub, fold the laundry, whatever. . .and once I was done with school and homework, I felt that I was entitled to time OFF.

I would take my current book and sneak away and hide, and not respond when I heard her hollering for me, until it was too dark to read any more. This was in Southern California, so it was seldom too cold to stay outside.

Bad, bad kid. . .

Exact same thing. Even in Utah in the cold I found places to hide. Give me a bottle of water and a book and I am a happy camper.

My bedtime as a 10-13 was 8pm. I was not allowed to even have my light on past 8.

I rigged an old alarm clock with a glowing face so I could read in my bed at night. I had an old low bunk bed with a thin mattress, and there was a huge space between the headboard and the bed. Being the lower bunk, it was pretty close to the floor. I put my book on the floor below the headboard, tucked it under the edge of the glowing alarm clock, and I would read for hours. It was just enough light to light the page, but it just looked like a glowing clock to the outside world. Even if my parents opened the door, they could not see that I was reading.

As a parent, I let me kids read as much as they wanted. When they were home by themselves in the summer, I would assign them reading and have them write book reports. I let them choose the books. Both kids increased their reading level over the summer, rather than losing it...their teachers commented favorably on that.

Paying a kid to read is an excellent idea. There is no better gift a kid can receive than a love of reading. It opens their world.



applesauce

"The State Boys Rebellion"

"A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist tells the amazing story of how a group of imprisoned boys won their freedom, found justice, and survived one of the darkest and least-known episodes of American history.
In the early twentieth century, United States health officials used IQ tests to single out "feebleminded" children and force them into institutions where they were denied education, sterilized, drugged, and abused. Under programs that ran into the 1970s, more than 250,000 children were separated from their families, although many of them were merely unwanted orphans, truants, or delinquents.
The State Boys Rebellion conveys the shocking truth about America's eugenic era through the experiences of a group of boys held at the Fernald State School in Massachusetts starting in the late 1940s"

http://www.amazon.com/State-Boys-Rebellion-Michael-DAntonio/dp/074324513X?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00

If you can truly get your son to read books I would gladly send you two signed copies of my own books for free.
They are very suitable for teens to adult.
The first is titled Trolls Don't Do Kung Fu and the second Laeringsted.

Thanks for all of the suggestions! Many of you reminded me that fiction themes are great topics for conversations too. ; )

You might want to consider having him read the Phillip Pullman series "His Dark Materials".

Some additional books:
The Giver
The Unwanteds series by Lisa McMann