Series, Author, or Book Suggestions--Please

I am building my classroom library for when I finish my Elementary Education degree. I am in the process of cataloging all my books I currently have. Would always love suggestions for books.

I have I am pretty sure I have all of the Junie B. Jones series. Will know for sure once I log it. Hopefully this weekend.

These are the series I want to get or ones I have part of already.

Magic Tree House
Boxcar Children
JigSaw Jones Mysteries
ABC/Calander Mysteries

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Authors:

Judy Blume
Barbara Park
Jerry Spinelli
Gertrude Warner
Beverely Cleary
Betty Birney

Where I feel I am lacking at least at this point are more authors and series that might be more geared for boys. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I recommend (*books that would appeal to boys)
The Chet Gecko series by Bruce Hale *
Invisible Emma by Terri Libenson (a graphic novel; very relatable with cute illustrations)
Big Nate novels by Lincoln Peirce *
Monster Mayhem by Christopher Eliopulous (a graphic novel)
Geronimo Stilton Series
Savvy Trilogy by Ingrid Law

>2 DestDest: DestDest

Thank you, I will look into those. I don't have everything cataloged yet and wont for awhile but I do have most of my chapter older children books done. I have one box left. I have some Geronimo / Thea Stilton Books, so I am on the look out for those.

I am also studying, for my MLIS degree, so I need to think about kids' books too! Unfortunately I don't know much about current YA fiction (yet), only about what was around when I was growing up. I think boys tend to like fantasy a lot, and adventurous fiction. My nephews do, and so did I growing up (technically I was a girl, but I read some of everything and turned out to be trans).

Here are some of the things I like (chapter books, probably on the more advanced side of elementary reading levels). Many of these are set in the 1970s-1990s, if not earlier. I don't really know if kids are put off by slightly dated books more than completely fantastical books or more distant historical settings. I will try to find out somehow!

Joan Aiken, especially the humorous or fantastical short stories, less so the scary stories. She also wrote adventure novels esp. the Dido Twite series.
Ellen Raskin - The Westing Game is endorsed by my nephew also. I liked everything I read by her.
Helen Cresswell - The Bagthorpe Saga (hilarious). Probably others of her books are also good, but I did not read any others back then.
Walter Farley - The Black Stallion books. They are about horses, and so they appeal to many girls, but the main character is a boy, so they might also appeal to boys.
Albert Payson Terhune - The Lad of Sunnybank books, and other (mostly) dog stories.
Marguerite Henry - more horses and similar animals, and adventure.
Norton Juster - The Phantom Tollbooth, fantasy
Susan Cooper - The Dark is Rising series, fantasy
L. Frank Baum - Oz series
Gordon Korman - mostly humorous fiction, I particularly liked the Macdonald Hall series.
Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman (Chinese stories)
John Bellairs - mystery/horror, I was not a big fan of horror but these were generally tolerable (more like fantasy-horror).
Edward Eager - fantasy
Brian Jacques - Redwall series
Nancy McArthur - The Plant that ate Dirty Socks books. I am not sure if they have aged well, but if you find one you could see if you like it. I certainly loved them when I was a kid.
Louise Fitzhugh - Harriet the Spy, etc.

More recent books (as in, I didn't read these growing up, I read them in the past few years):
Barry Deutsch: Hereville series (graphic novels, fantasy, humor, Orthodox Jewish)
Erin Hunter: An author that is a composite of several writers for marketing purposes. Adventurous stories about various animals-that-sort-of-act-like-people, mostly cats. I read one book and thought it was ok but nowhere near Redwall for quality. My 11-year-old nephew loves them though, and they are probably a bit easier to read than Redwall.

If you need suggestions about diverse/multicultural books, I see there are some threads in this group already discussing (at least) Latino/Hispanic, multicultural, LGBT, and Jewish books. I also recommend this book, Brown Gold: Milestones of African American Children's Picture Books, by Michelle Martin, if you want to learn about the history of Black characters and authors of picture books and find some recommendations. I am completely white and was never exposed to much diversity in my reading growing up, so I am currently trying to educate myself in this area.

This blog is about an initiative for inspiring Black boys to read, and some posts contain suggestions for books. It looks interesting to read even if you aren't involved in that specific project. In fact, blogs in general are great places to look for commentary and recommendations about different kinds of books. Does anyone have suggestions for relevant book blogs? I will certainly search for some more later, but I don't know when that will be.

I'm not sure that you would still be looking for suggestions, but there were a few my son really enjoyed about the age range it seemed you were looking for:

Animorphs by K.A. Applegate were popular with both my sons, although maybe a bit dated at this point.

I would certainly second the Erin Hunter books as my son has a huge collection of her books.

For a little younger range he also enjoyed the Beastquest series.

As you can probably tell, my son kind of veered toward fantasy stories. His favorite author now (at 19) is Ray Bradbury but my recollection is that his stories may be geared more toward teens than elementary age boys.

Thank you, >5 Jenson_AKA_DL:. I can always use more suggestions. I am still building that library up. I have a lot more to catalog as I have been given some from a teacher that was retiring and also a few teachers gave me some that were thinning their libraries as they were moving to new schools.

I have a good collection of the Animorphs. I was lucky and found them in really good condition at a couple of local Goodwill stores. Feel free to look at my library if you're interested.

Not sure what grades you'll be teaching so you might have to check for age appropriate things but my sons liked
Captain Underpants, Diary of a Wimpy Kid (there's books similar to this geared towards girls but I forgot the full title but it also starts with Diary but both might want to read of course), Series of Unfortunate Events of course, can get both sides attention. An Origami Yoda series...similar style to Diary of a Wimpy Kid & Big Nate. Star Wars Jedi Academy, also similar to previous mentioned. Spiderwick Chronicles but I think this might be a "are they age appropriate" and " how easily spooked" is the individual child type of books especially.