The aim of this paper is to introduce and characterize observability and reconstructibility properties for Boolean networks and Boolean control networks, described according to the algebraic approach proposed by D. Cheng and co-authors in the series of papers [3], [6], [7] and in the recent monography [8]. A complete characterization of these properties, based both on the Boolean matrices involved in the network description and on the corresponding digraphs, is provided. Finally, the problem of state observer design for reconstructible BNs and BCNs is addressed, and two different solutions are proposed.