The best way to find books that your eight-year-old sons will enjoy is by asking eight-year-old boys what books they love to read. At the age of eight, kids have a whole range of reading levels, from beginners to kids that can read higher-level books such as Percy Jackson or Harry Potter. Allow your kid to choose the books that he wants to read or give him a few eight-year-old approved book options for him to choose from.
Books for eight-year-old boys include:
- The Lost Diary Of Sami Star
- Extreme Adventures
- The Book Of Chaos
- Goosebumps: The Haunted Car
- James And The Giant Peach
- Trapped In A Video Game
- The Indian In The Cupboard
- The BFG
- The Secret Lake: A Children’s Mystery Adventure and many more!
If you want to find the perfect book that will spark a love for reading in your eight-year-old boy, you are in the right place. This article will provide you with a brilliant list of adventure, mystery, and friendship books that your child will fall in love with!
25 Books For 8-Year-Old Boys
This magical list of books is ideal for getting a young reader to enjoy reading. It is the perfect compilation of books filled with mystery, suspense, friendships, fun, and games!
1. The Secret Lake: A Children’s Mystery Adventure By Karen Inglis
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When siblings Stella and Tom relocate to their new home in London, they become suspicious of their elderly neighbor’s dog Harry. He keeps on disappearing and comes back all wet. Where does the little dog go?
To solve the mystery, they decide to go on a quest. Firstly, Stella and Tom find a boat that is buried under a grassy mound, and then a tunnel leads them all the way to a secret lake!
On the lake is a scared-looking boy that rows towards them, and they hear the voices of children blowing in the wind from within the woods. Who is this mysterious boy?
Finally, Stella and Tom discover that they’ve traveled back 100 years in time to their home, and here they make enemies and friends as they uncover strange connections between the present and the past.
2. BOOT: Small Robot Big Adventure By Shane Hegarty
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This is a heart-warming story of a junkyard toy named Boot. Boot is confused when he wakes up in the junkyard, and with only two and a half-memories, he tries to find his child owner Beth.
However, the junkyard keeper, Flint, tries to destroy him, and when he manages to escape, he discovers that the world as he knew it had become a very strange place. There appear to be odd, hypnotized robots everywhere he goes.
Noke and Red, who are underground misfits, give Boot clues to the whereabouts of Beth. They meet Tag, who works at the funfair, and together they use drones to escape from Flint and find Beth, who has a charger to charge Boot’s battery that is almost flat.
3. Ninja Kid By Anh Do
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Imagine waking up on your tenth birthday, and suddenly you have ninja powers! Well, that is exactly what happened to Nelson Kane, and when a cluster of massive spiders attack his town, the once accident-prone nerd tries to use his newfound powers to destroy them.
His mother encourages that as the last ninja left on earth, he must use his lightning-fast powers to protect humanity against the forces of evil!
To add to the insanity, his grandmother reveals her secret workshop, full of devices that she invented. To help her grandson, she arms him with a backpack full of her gadgets.
4. The Lost Diary of Sami Star By Karen McCombie
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Hannah’s parents are so preoccupied with dealing with her older sister’s quarrels that they seem to have forgotten all about her. To make matters worse, she is not getting along with her best friends, and they also seem to have forgotten about her.
Sad and alone, Hannah finds a journal in the park filled with drawings and quirky photos. Sami Star, the author of the diary, fascinates her, and she decides to find her to return her journal. She needs to find and follow clues in the diary to find Sami Star.
5. A Double Detectives Medical Mystery: The Cure for a Crime By Roopa Farooki
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Ever since her new boyfriend moved in, twins Tulip and Ali’s mum has been very sleepy, and she just isn’t herself.
Along with their best friends Jay and Zac, the double detectives try to solve the mysterious case and help their mom, who is obviously in serious danger!
6. Magic Tree House Series By Mary Pope Osborne
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Brother and sister Jack and Annie discover a time-traveling treehouse that allows them to go on exciting, magical adventures throughout the histories of the world.
They meet plenty of wonderful historical icons and visit great ancient places. Any eight-year-old boy that likes to read adventure books will love the Magic Tree House series!
7. Extreme Adventures Series By Justin D’ath
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Sam Fox has a history of getting himself into extreme situations! During a tropical cyclone, Sam and his cousin Nissa are kidnapped by a mysterious robber.
After the car crashes into Crocodile River, they must face one dilemma after the other if they want to survive. Will the courageous young hero and his cousin escape the turmoil? Read this great adventure to find out!
8. The Enormous Egg By Oliver Butterworth
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Nate can’t believe it when his hen suddenly lays an enormous egg. To his surprise, the egg does not contain a chick, and when the creature emerges from his shell,
Nate is shocked to see that it is a triceratops. The moment the dinosaur hatches, Nate’s adventure starts!
9. The Book Of Chaos (Starfell) By Jessica Renwick
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The village of Larkmoor seems boring and without magic. But Fable has a spark running through her veins, and she has secret powers that are forced to stay secret by her over-protective aunt.
One day a mysterious book lands in Fable’s lap, and suddenly, her cousin disappears into the pages! The brave twelve-year-old follows her into the book to an enchanted forest filled with magical creatures, strange people, and more danger than she could ever imagine!
She befriends a few rather peculiar characters along the way and, together with their help, fights for her loved ones and tries to find her way back before it is too late! She is forced to trust and rely on herself; otherwise, she could lose her cousin forever! Will she manage to save him?
10. Goosebumps: The Haunted Car By R.L. Stine
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Mitchell Moinian can’t seem to concentrate on his homework and keeps checking on the car outside his bedroom window. The car was drawing him towards it with its sleek blue body glowing and chrome bumpers sparkling in the street lights!
Mitchell finds himself unable to resist the temptation to sit in the car and decides to sneak down the stairs and out the front door.
As he walks to the driver’s side and grabs the car door handle, a voice whispers, “Go ahead. Climb in.” Mitchell does not realize it yet, but he is in for the scariest ride of his life!
11. Henry Huggins By Beverly Cleary
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Just a normal boy, Henry Huggins complains that his life is too boring and lacks excitement until he meets an adorable, mischievous puppy that turns his whole world upside down!
Ribsy sat next to him and eyed his ice cream cone from the very moment the two were inseparable! However, Ribsy’s previous owner shows up out of nowhere and tries to take Rigsby back.
Is there a chance that he could lose Ribsy forever? Klickitat Street will never be the same without him. Can he prevent the heartache, and will he get to keep Ribsy?
12. Frindle By Andrew Clements
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All that troublemaker Nick Allen wants to do is liven up his school a little bit. Nick has recently discovered interesting facts about words and how they are formed. This sparks a silly but brilliant idea to change the word pen into “Frindle.”
At first, only Nick and his friends use the word. However, the word quickly spreads through the entire school, and Nick has become a local hero! By the time his teacher orders him to end this madness, it is too late.
The word has made its way across the entire country, and there is no way that he can stop it from spreading now. What will Nick do, and are we all going to write with frindles in the future?
13. The Indian In The Cupboard By Lynne Reid Banks
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When Omri’s friend Patrick gives him a small plastic Indian for his birthday, he has no idea how it would change his life! At first, Omri is a bit disappointed with his gift, so he places it inside a metal cupboard.
He locks the cupboard with his great-grandmother’s very mysterious skeleton key. But what Omri doesn’t know is that by turning the key, the Indian toy will transform into a real-life Indian from a different era.
The Indian who calls himself “Little Bear” is totally different from Omri’s world, and soon the pair form a friendship like no other! Omri must try everything to keep his new friend a secret, but for how long can he keep it up before someone finds out?
14. The BFG By Roald Dahl
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The Big Friendly Giant (BFG) is unlike any other. He does not perpetuate the stereotype of an ordinary giant that crushes bones as he is way too jumbly and friendly for that.
That is why Sophie is the luckiest girl in the world when she is carried (kidnapped) off in the middle of the night by BFG instead of a Bloodbottler who wouldn’t hesitate for a second to have her for breakfast!
Instead, with the help of her new friend, Sophie decides to stop the giant’s plan to snatch up good little children from England. Will they be able to stop the bad giants in time, or are they fighting a losing battle?
15. James And The Giant Peach By Roald Dahl
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James Henry Trotter is going through a tough time. Firstly, his parents were sadly eaten by a ferocious rhinoceros forcing him to live with his two horrible aunties, Sponge and Spiker.
Life over there has become boring until one day when James drops magic crystals by an old peach tree by accident, and really strange things start happening. A peach, right at the very top, starts to grow, and it doesn’t take long before it has grown to the size of a house!
Inside the peach, he meets a few oversized characters; Centipede, Ladybug, Grasshopper, and more. But the real adventure begins when the stem is snipped, and the giant peach starts to roll away! Where will the enormous peach take him and his new friends?
16. Jabari Jumps By Gaia Cornwall
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Jabari has completed his swimming lessons and passed the swim test. He is also a very good jumper, so diving off the diving board should be no problem for him, right? He looks on as the children take turns jumping.
But when his father squeezes his hand, he squeezes back and realizes that he needs to figure out what type of jump to do first. He also needs to do the necessary stretches before even thinking of getting onto the diving board.
With his loving and encouraging father by his side, will Jabari find the courage within himself to do his first big jump?
17. Trapped in a Video Game By Dustin Brady
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Jesse’s friend gets his hands on an early release of a video game. But things go horribly wrong, and both Jesse and his friend are sucked into and trapped inside the video game!
To their demise, they meet the classmate that had been a missing person for weeks and has become a grown-up in there. He couldn’t get out! There is no way out! Will Jesse and his friend ever get out of the game before they too turn into adults?
18. Middle School, The Worst Years of My Life By James Patterson
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Rafe Khatchadorian has come up with a genius plan to avoid dealing with his home and school life. He is going to break all the rules in his middle school’s Code of Conduct, and he’s keeping score!
Five thousand points for chewing gum in class, ten thousand points for running in the hallway, and fifty thousand points for pulling the school’s fire alarm! At first, it seems like things are going his way until his rebellious acts start to catch up with him.
He realizes that he can’t keep avoiding bullies, truths, and rules and that his life with change for the better if he faces his fears.
19. The Haunted Library By Dori Hillestad Butler
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When Kaz, a ghost boy’s haunt, is completely torn down, he gets separated from his entire ghost family. But then he meets a young girl who lives with her grandmother and her parents at the top of the town’s library.
The girl, Claire, can see ghosts while no other humans can, and the two form a wonderful friendship.
Together Kaz and Claire try to solve the eerie mystery of a ghost that is haunting the library! Could the ghost be one of Kaz’s lost ghost relatives?
20. Eerie Elementary: The School is Alive! By Jack Chabert
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After his first day of being a hall monitor, Sam Graves discovers that his elementary school is alive and wants to harm all the students!
With the class play around the corner, Sam must protect himself and try anything and everything in his power to save the kids from the evil school.
He has a rather wild adventure doing so, but with the help of his friends Lucy and Antonio, he stands a better chance. Can they stop the school before the play, or will they all fall victim to Eerie Elementary?
21. Gulliver’s Travels By Jonathan Swift
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Gulliver, the ship’s surgeon, has made great discoveries such as the two countries of Brobdingnag and Lilliput, but nothing could prepare for what he finds next!
When Gulliver travels across the oceans searching for a new adventure, he discovers a whole population of tiny people that thinks he is a giant!
However, in Brobdingnag, Gulliver is the tiny one, and the people are the giants! Is this the adventure he was looking for, or is he in over his head?
22. The Worst Class Trip Ever By Dave Barry
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Eight-year-old Wyatt Palmer, his best friend Matt, and a few more children from Culver Middle School go on a class trip to Washington DC.
Soon they realize that they have crossed the line and not only have their teachers lost the patience for their nonsense but a group of mysterious men on their flight too.
They will have to try and stay out of the way of danger as they desperately try to save the president from a possible attack. Will they be able to get themselves out of trouble and become the heroes of the day?
23. Crenshaw By Katherine Applegate
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Things are not going too well for Jackson and his family at the moment. They find themselves unable to pay their rent or buy food.
They are faced with the harsh reality that his whole family and their dog might have to live in his parent’s minivan, again! Crenshaw, the large, outspoken cat, re-enters Jackson’s life to cope with everything going on.
But Crenshaw is no ordinary cat; he is an imaginary one! Will Jackson and his imaginary friend be able to save his family from everything they hold dear?
24. The Terrible Two By Mac Barnett
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Prankster is Miles Murphy’s middle name! He loves to cause mischief, and he is well known at his school for all his epic pranks!
When Miles is forced to relocate to boring Yawnee Valley, he just assumes that he will become the king of pranksters at his new school.
However, to his surprise, a kid who is really good at pranking people has already taken that title.
Will Miles lose the reputation that he so desperately wants to uphold, or will his new nemesis outshine him?
25. New Kid By Coretta Scott King (Winner of the Newbery Medal For Young Readers’ Literature)
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Starting over at a new school can be terrifying! Just ask seventh-grader Jordan Banks. Jordon loves to draw cartoons that depict his life, and he definitely has a talent.
However, he ends up being the new kid and one of the very few children of color at a very prestigious school in upscale Riverdale.
Every day, Jordan travels from his apartment in Washington Heights to his new school and feels torn between two worlds. He does not feel like he fits in at home or at his new school.
Jordan tries very hard to navigate, keeping his neighborhood friends and dealing with his new school culture. Can he find a healthy balance without losing and staying true to himself?
In Conclusion
Any child can enjoy reading as long as they are interested in the theme and resonate with them. Books are wonderful sources of inspiration for young children, and they teach them age-related solutions to their problems.
The trick is to introduce them to the right books; otherwise, they will think that reading is boring and may not be interested in reading! Kids learn that they are not the only ones going through stuff and that there is always a way out of a dilemma.
We hope your boy will enjoy our list that we have carefully selected just for him!
References:
Red Brightly: Books 6-8 Year Old Boys Must Read
Book Trust: Great Books Guide for Children 8-9 Years of Age
The Guardian: Recommended Reads for Children 8-10 Years Old
Imagination Soup: Best Books for 8-Year-Olds
Mom Loves Best: Books for 8-Year-Olds
