Reddit mentions of Eragon: Book I (The Inheritance Cycle 1)

you could look into eragon. its about a boy and dragons. its been a while since i read it but it should be just above his reading level i think. a great series too

The Phantom Tollbooth

The Dragonlance series and the Deathgate Cycle have already been recommended. Absolutely what you say you are looking for.

The War of the Blades books have elves - more in the second book than in the first - but no dwarves that I can recall. They also have fair numbers of fantasy creatures, both novel and more traditional. Dragons, of course, have a huge role.

The Inheritance Cycle might be something you'd like. Eragon is a pretty straight-forward clone of The Belgariad's plotline, but with the addition of dragons, elves, and dwarves.

ETA: Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies and his Tiffany Aching books have an interesting take on elves.

It's been a long while since I reread that too. I wonder if I'd still like it? My old favorites have an unfortunate habit of being ruined by rereads. (I'm looking at you, Alanna.)

>I can hate a character to pieces but if I care what happens either way and I believe the internal logic of the book/story, I will follow it to the end.

Story vaguely related to that: I read Prince of Thorns and The Selection in the same week (almost the same sitting). I liked both books. A lot. Prince of Thorns, about an indubitably evil stabby bastard made me question my sanity a lot less than compulsively reading about the jaw-droppingly Sue-ish America freaking Singer (beautiful, selfless, trilingual chanteuse and object of affection in the love triangle who is the only girl ever to not want to be a princess and demand to wear pants). I want my characters to have flaws. If the negatives outweigh the positives and I am still not actively rooting for the MC's immediate dismemberment, that's a badge of impressive authorship right there! So enjoying Jorg's brutal ride let me vicariously release some anger and enjoy discovering a science-tinged fantasy world. Giving a crap about the overpowered, perfect America Singer threw me off-kilter. I'm supposed to be immune to that sort of wish-fulfillment fluff. As for following things to the end... Let's pretend The One never happened. Or that The Heir will fix it.

That whole anecdote could easily be twisted into a "men get more leeway to be a Gary Stu" argument because of reader empathy/expectations with male vs female, but then I could hold up Eragon and Kvothe as hated characters because they were presented as perfect and overpowered and almost always right and I still hated them.