My kid would not pick up a book for anything. Months went by and I watched the reading logs come back blank. I was starting to worry that nothing would ever get through to him. Then one day at the library he grabbed this ridiculous graphic novel about cat astronauts and refused to put it down. He read the whole thing in two sittings. Two sittings! I almost cried.
Here is the thing about graphic novels and comics. The pictures do not just decorate the story, they carry it. For a kid who has decided reading is boring or too hard, having all those panels with action and humor and visual storytelling takes away the pressure. It feels less like reading and more like watching something happen on the page. My son did not suddenly love reading because he got a warm fuzzy about books. He loved it because there were cats in space suits doing funny things and he wanted to see what happened next. The words came along for the ride.
There is this series called CatStronauts where elite cat astronauts repair stuff on the International Space Station and it is genuinely hilarious. Then there is Peril in Pompeii where a kid gets sucked back in time right when Mount Vesuvius erupts, which sounds intense but the graphic format makes it totally accessible. My daughter found one about Indiana Jones teaming up with pirates and she could not stop talking about it. For the animal lovers there is a goofy story called The Goose that Laid the Rotten Egg about a girl who helps a gassy goose and gets golden eggs, which sounds absurd but she thought it was the best thing ever. And if your kid is into history there are graphic novels about real events like the San Francisco earthquake that read like action stories. Some of these are marked around level 3 which is nice for younger readers but honestly the pictures matter more than the numbers.
What actually works is simple. Short books they can finish fast. Books with pictures so they do not feel overwhelmed. Books about things they are already interested in. Books that do not feel like homework. My kid is not going to read a classic with chapters and chapters of description. He is going to read about cats in space or time travel or pirates because that is what keeps his attention. The moment he finished one he wanted another one just like it. That is the whole secret.
If you have a reluctant reader in your house do not stress about getting them to read everything. Just get them to read one thing. One book that makes them forget they are reading. That is the win. Everything else builds from there.