Book Excitement with the Boys

I have been so grateful for the library's summer reading program.  It is such a wonderful incentive for my boys to read (or listen to me read).  They relish heading off to the library on a Monday or Tuesday to receive their prize for achieving their weekly goal in reading and picking out new books to read.  (One prize was even a day pass to Indiana Beach.  Awesome!) We've been reading our Day-by-Day Bible along with other chapter books.  Plus, Daddy has been reading one of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books to them.

But, this morning our excitement was raised even higher when I opened the library's newest acquisition e-mail.  We discovered that the library has ordered two books we have been waiting for: Book 10 in the Ivy and Bean series and Book 8 in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.  The boys are so excited.  We put holds on both and will probably get the Ivy and Bean one first (to be released Sept. 24, 2013), since we are at the top of the hold list and it comes out sooner than the Diary of a Wimpy Kid book (to be released in November, I think). It is really quite an achievement on Annie Barrows' part to have created a series featuring two female protagonists but equally appealing to young boys.  I love the fact that my boys feel such enthusiasm for books that they await the release of new books in series they love.  I love seeing their eyes gleam when told we will be first to get a book they have been wanting to get for months.

Plus, I noticed Amazon's listing of some new books I can't wait to try with the boys (or alone, as might happen): Navigating Early, by Clare Vanderpool, The Sasquatch Escape, by Suzanne Selfors, and Escape from Mr. Lemoncello's Library, by Chris Grabenstein.  Each of these sound very promising.  I'm sure the boys will especially gravitate toward the one about Sasquatch.

They are already complaining about our upcoming trip to our 10-day Bible camp at the end of July.  They bemoan the fact that there will be no television or computer available there.  I am hoping I will be able to find some really engaging chapter books to keep us entertained in the evenings before bed (or on those days when it rains during the afternoon free time).  I have great memories of books read to Bryce during those CBLI trips of the past (I especially remember enjoying Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tiger Rising). Do you have any suggestions for really enticing reads for 6 and 8 year old boys?