Someone recently asked me about recommendations for reading material for boys ages 10-12, specifically in regards to mystery books. I thought the answer might interest others so I'm pasting it below. Enjoy!   

First of all, one neat thing about mystery books is that I think there is MUCH overlap between boy/girl books. My sons and daughters all read the Hardy Boys, Boxcar Children, etc. and they don't seem to see them as "boy books" or "girl books." So, for the most part, the things I state below will be useful whether you have boys or girls.

In regards to the Hardy Boys books, which was specifically asked about, I really like these books for teh most part... The first 58 books were written by "Franklin W. Dixon" (a pen name for Leslie McFarlane) and several other writers between 1929 and 1979. These are the BEST of the Hardy Boys books, in my opinion, and I'll get into reasons why in a minute.

From 1979 to 2005, volumes #59 to #190 were written. These are still pretty good, although I think the vocabulary in them was gradually "dumbed down."

For example, in the first 58 books (the 1929-1979 books), you will find words like "stevedores," "wrathfully," "gangplank," and "hoisting." I found those four words on one page picked at random. On the same page are also phrases such as "a torrent of salty comments" and descriptive phrases like "the sun-bleached reddish fuzz on his freckled pate." I think a kid who is interested in the story can learn quite a bit of vocabulary reading material like that.

Then, in the next set of volumes (#59 to #190), I picked a random page out of one of those books and the most difficult words I found were "scorched" and "Citronella," described as "that mosquito stuff." I think it's significant to note that there was also an addition of words I do NOT see in the first 58 volumes, such as "duh" and "uh-uh." Now that's all from one random page.

The original 58 volumes have about 180 pages and volumes 59 - 190 have about 150 pages. On those pages, the type is much bigger in the second set of volumes so the reader is reading much less overall. I suppose if a reader's skills are not quite as developed, you could start out with the second set of books and THEN go back to the first 58 volumes, but it seems that going from the first 58 to the following volumes is a lowered standard.

The next set of books are the Hardy Boys Casefiles. I absolutely do NOT recommend these books for young readers. They have mild curse words, the vocabulary is more along the "duh" lines and not "stevedores," and Joe and Frank actually use guns and violence to solve their crimes (including murders) instead of the brain power that they used in the original series of books. The Casefiles books were written from 1987 to 1998 and they definitely show a much more secular content with a liberal worldview.

If your child has exhausted the Hardy Boys books and would like more books that have a mystery background, I would recommend the following as well:

The Bobbsey Twins series (all)

The Boxcar Children series (all)

Frank Peretti's "The Cooper Kids" series and other Frank Peretti books, although I think parents should use caution with some of these books as they can be very scary for some kids and you probably should inspect these thoroughly to make sure they're ok for YOUR child.

Nancy Drew series (with caution)

Of course there are other great miscellaneous mystery books, but the problem is that kids ages 10-12 typically get VERY stuck on series books. They LOVE to thoroughly explore every angle of something that peaks their interest and going through every book in a series is another way for them to do that. So, I've only listed series mysteries here, but there are also some good one-time mystery books.

I hope this helps in your search for good books!

Sonya  : )

www.sonyahaskins.com