Ask Slashdot: Best Science-Fiction/Fantasy For Kids?

Jason Levine writes "My son is 8 years old. I'd love to get him interested in science-fiction, but most of the books I can think of seem to be targeted to older kids/adults. Thinking that the length of some novels might be off-putting to him, I read him some of the short stories in Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. He liked these, but I could tell he was having a hard time keeping up. I think the wording of the stories was too advanced and there was too much talking and not enough action. Personally, I love Asimov, but I think much of it just went over his head. Which science fiction and/or fantasy books would you recommend for an 8-year-old? (Either stories he could read himself or that we could read together over the course of a few weeks.)"

Comments

Don't try

[crazyjj]

My advice might seem a little cynical, but the first thing I always tell someone who asks "How do I get my kid to like X?" is to tell them "Don't." If they're anything like my kids, mom and dad trying to sell them on something is the quickest way to make it the most uncool thing in the universe.

When I was a kid, my dad kept trying to sell me on Westerns. Whether or not that had anything to do with it, or whether it was just my nature, I can tell you that I *hated* Westerns then and still do. Of course, I never had the heart to tell the old man, and humored him to no end. But if there was ever any chance I was going to like those bastards Louis L'Amour or John Ford, my dad trying to make them seem "cool" certainly guaranteed that it was never going to happen.

As an alternative, why not ask your kid what HE likes, and YOU read some of HIS stuff instead? It will probably be a bunch of crap (my evil kids stuck me with reading those damned Harry Potter and pussy vampire books). But at least you won't be turning him off to something.

Re:Don't try

[g0bshiTe]

We are talking about an 8 year old. They usually tend to still think their parents are cool at that age.

Re:Don't try

[g0bshiTe]

I remember those old times, be home before the street lights come on. Did you used to see how far you could go during a day and still be home before dark? Farthest I go was from Houston, TX to Pasadena, TX and back home before dark. Roughly 14 miles one way, not too shabby for an 8 year old.

Re:Don't try

[dkleinsc]

Even better strategy: leave the book lying around, and tell him that it's not for kids his age and he's not allowed to read it. He'll pick it up for sure.

Re:Don't try

[cygnwolf]

If you want to stay with Asimov, he wrote the Lucky Starr books under a pen name, they were targeted at younger boys and were much more accessible and understandable by me than, say, Foundation

Re:Don't try

[greenfruitsalad]

I also forgot to mention Terry Pratchett. He wrote quite a few books for his daughter.

There's Johnny Maxwell trilogy which is cool, Nome trilogy which is hilarious and cool, Carpet people which is also very funny, there are also Discworld novels for kids but I haven't read those.

Tolkien, of course

[plover]

I read the Hobbit to my son around first grade, and we read Lord of the Rings when he was about 7. This was ten years before the movies came out, and he was able to use his own imagination instead of seeing Peter Jackson's imagination at work. Highly recommended - he still has fond memories of our reading those books, and even said so this weekend.

If you read them over the course of a few weeks or so they are like any serial, where you learn to keep track of who is where and doing what, and enjoy the anticipation of finding out what comes next. I wouldn't assume they have to be short stories, they just have to hold his interest.

Re:Tolkien, of course

[Quiet_Desperation]

I hope it was the original version where Bilbo stabs first.

Tripods

[Anonymous Coward]

Christopher's Tripods trilogy is aimed at the younger reader. There's even an old British TV adaptation of the first two books.

Jules Verne!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was totally reading Jules Verne as a young kid. They're easy reads, often interesting for kids, and are very light-hearted/G-rated.

Harry Potter in space

[fuo]

Ender's Game.

Heinlein Juvies.

[HornWumpus]

'Space Cadet', 'Rocket Ship Galileo', 'Have Space Suit Will Travel' etc etc.

Re:Heinlein Juvies.

[Jhon]

Agreed. Those are good starters.

Didn't work for my son,though. He just wasn't interested. But he did go for Harry Potter. I read the first 5 books to him. He re-read those on his own -- then completed the series as it came out.

So, I left him alone to find is own interests. Around age 11 he picked up a copy of Percy Jackson. He ate up the entire series. Turns out he has the same "useless superpower" that I have -- the ability to read freakishly fast. He's now getting ready to turn 13 and has read through most of my older Heinleins (I'm not ready to try to explain to my wife Stranger, Time enough for Love, etc... so those are off limits), Asimovs and all my old "serials" (Simon Hawke, Robert Asprin, etc).

I think the best advice is to READ to your kids. Get them interested. Read what they like. And if you can, Be EMOTIVE when you read.

As a side note, I used to end an evening with a cliff-hanger. Right smack dab in the middle of the chapter there'd be something like "... and then there was a BANG! Ok... We're done for tonight". Drove my son insane. Made him seek out the book and read ahead.

Re:Heinlein Juvies.

[kailSD]

The Star Beast! Kids love Lummox. :)

STAR WARS

[Forrest Kyle]

Have him watch Star Wars in the Machete Order and then get him started on the Timothy Zahn books, Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, and The Last Command. They are awesome! I loved them when I was a kid, and still do.

Fantasy

[COMON$]

Narnia or Dark is Rising, both are fast paced and worthy of a few chapters at a time. I was read them when I was a kid, by the time we finished Narnia I was reading the books to my parents and was way ahead of my classmates on a reading level.

Hard for 8 Year Olds But Here's a Core Dump

[eldavojohn]

I don't recall getting into this stuff seriously until I was 11 or 12 but names I would throw out would be Madeline L'Engle (Wrinkle in Time), C.S. Lewis (Perelandra, That Hideous Strength), Ray Bradbury (Martian Chronicles or his short stories), Lowis Lowry (The Giver), Orson Scott Card (Ender's Game although it's a long one for kids), Robert Heinlein (The Star Beast, The Rolling Stones), Arthur C. Clarke (Childhood's End), Terry Pratchett (Johnny Maxwell series) ... now, since I was young there have been a whole raft of others and I think Neil Gaiman is even writing children's books now. I guess some names I've heard that you can look into are Andre Norton, Douglas E. Richards, Terrance Dicks, Donald Moffitt, Larry Niven, Jane Yolen, Gary Paulson, etc.

Just so you know, Asimov did edit collections of sci-fi for children (on his way to having his name on 500 books) and I think I remember Young Mutants and Tomorrow's Children being okay collections.

A Wrinkle in Time

[Hatta]

Need I say more?

H. Beam Piper - _Little Fuzzy_

[WillAdams]

_not_ Scalzi's reboot.

Charming, stand-alone story which is a part of his ``Terro-Human Future''.

In the public domain, so available from Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18137

If you're travelling at some point in the near future, the version on Librivox:

http://librivox.org/little-fuzzy-by-h-beam-piper/

is absolutely professional in its production quality and would make a great story to listen to in the car.

William

(and I second the suggestions of Verne, Ender's Game and the Heinlein juveniles)

Danny Dunn...

[LoLobey]

Books I remember liking from that age that had a science or sci-fi bent were Danny Dunn stories (there were quite a few books, don't know if any are available) and a book called the Dinosaur and the Egg (by Stephanie Lewis?). Lit my imagination and an appetite for all things sci-ency.

Kid's Sci-Fi

[TubeSteak]

There's plenty of kid-focused Sci-Fi
Anything with Janet Assimov's name on it is kid friendly.
I loved the Lucky Starr series by Isaac Asimov (under the name "Paul French")
Heinlen even wrote some kids books.

Most of the 'big' sci-fi authors have written stories for kids.
You just have to go looking for it.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[INeededALogin]

I've seen an eight year old read it and love it. It is very accessible because it is just random fun.

Re:Alan Garner as well

[ghostdoc]

Good call on Alan Garner, I'd second that.

Also the Wizard of Earthsea series (Ursula LeGuin) are very readable and the character is (or at least starts the adventure as a) kid, which I think is necessary for kid-suitable fiction.

It's heartbreaking to say it, because they've given me so much pleasure over so many years, but we may as a civilisation be moving away from Plain Old Books and into other forms of storytelling.
It might be more useful in the long run to teach him how to discern between mass-market crap and good, meaningful stories in whatever form they take.

Tom Swift

[arikol]

the Tom Swift books are pretty fun for kids. Crazy airplanes, spaceships, submarines, and all kinds of weird things. The books will make YOU cringe a little (not the best prose in the world and sometimes quite tacky) but may spark the imagination of a child.

Hardcore sci-fi can start being interesting soon, but most of that does not get REALLY interesting until the children become old enough to read between the lines and see the actual point of the stories. At least a little. Books such as Animal Farm (okay, not sci-fi, but bear with me) are often seen as boring by children who haven't trained themselves to read books and understand the point. Most hardcore sci-fi isn't about robots, but rather about the human condition. Choose something simpler that really is about robots to begin with. The rest comes when the children start exploring by themselves.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The Hobbit

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

Absolutely, The Hobbit. At eight it should be easy. We were reading LOTR by eight. The Narnian Chronicles are also good for children and easy reads. (Some people hate them as inherently religious--kids don't notice.)

Harry Potter, though reductive and non-classic, is also easy and can be fun.

The Dark is Rising Sequence is a slightly tougher read, but also uses much better language.

Most importantly, turn off the TV/Computer/Videogames. Books get MUCH more interesting when there isn't something around that gives faster rewards.

A wrinkle in time

[TapeCutter]

I agree, I tried to wade through Tolkien as an adult but could never stay awake long enough to turn the page. For an 8yo I would suggest A wrinkle in time, I enjoyed immensly when I read it as a kid in the 60's. Unlike Tolkien it flows very well. The main charcters are kids a teenage girl hero and her younger brother, the writer does a great job of making them real by giving the charaters everyday kids problems. For example the girl is seen as a troublemaker at school and lacks self-confidence in her looks because of her red hair. It's educational without reading like a text book, it firmly plants science and math concepts into the child's mind by applying them to situations the hero's find themselves in, (a visit to a 2d planet is one example of that covers the concepts of higher spacial dimemtions).

But most importantly it's a great story about two kids growing up on an road trip through the universe, guided by wise beings who do not belittle their childhood concerns but rather expose them to experiences and hard choices that provides them with the perspective to deal with their own problems. The Harry Potter series does the same thing but in a different setting and with less educational value. Ultimately I belive the ability of these writers to relate to kids in this way via a fantasy world is why both books have been immensley popular with children. The fact that both books mention wicthcraft have also made them very unpopular with religious nutters, Both are high on the list of books that have garnered the most petitions to ban them in the US, wich to me is even more reason to give them to your kids and let them make up their own minds.

Now if someone could just explain to me why my 3yo grandaughter is facinated by kids shows that to me look and sound like they were the product of some really funky drugs? I'm not having a go at modern kids shows here, my favorite when I was very young was "Bill and Ben the flowerpot men" which as an adult appears every bit as fucked up as the modern stuff. Since I only had B/W TV as a young child, this universal urge to watch bizzare animated creatures wander around the screen can't be explained away by "bright colours".