lil, the eyes of the dragon that i mentioned before is a book theat departs from kings' m.o. he actually wrote it for his daughter 'cause she didn't like his scary stuff, and it's got a great moral. check it out:
http://members.tripod.com/~charnelh...fthedragon.html

aside from steven king, the princess bride by william goldman and of course the harry potter series (i loved every one of these) by j k rowlings are all great books that challenge a kid to read something longer than a comic and deeper than the latest highlights magazine.