Or paste this piezoelectric material on the walls of Congress and solve the energy crisis. There's enough bulls*** being thrown around there to power the world a hundred times over...
I second the recommendation of "Wheel of Time" series...most kids actually will be able to absorb the series, particularly if they are as voracious a reader as you are giving them credit for.
I disagree with the timetable on them, however...I went through the first 9 in the span of just over a summer...but I've been known to devour 100 pages in about an hour and a half...your reading rates may vary. I'm now anxiously awaiting the 12th and final novel...ghost-written by someone who was told the story by The Dragon himself, the old fashioned way; he became a gleeman for a very select audience just before he passed away.
I was also delighted to see recommendations for Fred Saberhagen's "Book of Swords" and "Book of Lost Swords." My dad had both of those and I picked them up on a whim (my father's sci-fi/sci-fantasy collection is better than most public library's, and often better than bookstores...) at approximately 14, and promptly devoured them.
I also recommend Piers Anthony, but not the Xanth novels after about 15...I'd put them on the "Incarnations of Immortality" series. Xanth is great...as long as you are SCAdian and can get some of the in-jokes about the Dark Horde...
Terry Brooks also has several good novels appropriate for kids; I'd recommend the first "Shanarra" trilogy (Sword of Shanarra, Elfstones of Shanarra, and Wishsong of Shanarra) and his "Knight of the Word" trilogy; it's one of his more recent works (Running with the Demon, A Knight of the Word, and Angel Fire East) but a very good read indeed.
If your kids lean more toward a fantasy bent (I happened to...) I'd also recommend Raymond E. Feist's "Riftwar Saga" It starts with "Magician: Apprentice" and "Magician: Master," and concludes the initial tetralogy with "Silverthorn" and "A Darkness at Sethanon"
I think your kids should be exposed to everything that you can expose them to; to assume that they are not old enough to understand something may be underestimating their capacity to learn and grow. I am endlessly glad that my mother and father just pointed me at good books and let me go, with no pretense or explanation before I read the book. Of course, when your mother is a librarian, and your father has a collection of well over 1000 sci-fi/fantasy novels, you have a bit of a leg up on variety...
I completely agree with you. During College, every time my (now) wife and I saw a teaser/trailer for a movie that we thought looked interesting, we scanned the local papers and school paper for the reviews of the movie, and if the critics all hated it, we went and saw it. 9 times in 10 we were glad we did.
The people who write those reviews are almost always elitist movie snobs, who are missing the point that it's a *movie*, not high art. People go to the movies to be entertained for 2 hours. A simple popcorn-muncher is sometimes all you really want. I'm personally looking forward to the new Indy.
The other thing that ruins reviews like this is a fanboy gets his crush on, and waits in anticipation for 10-20 years, and has all these grandiose ideas of what the movie should or shouldn't look/feel/smell like, and then there's no possible way for the movie to live up to that much internal-hype. That's what happened with the new Star Wars trilogy (although Jar-Jar made me want to stab Lucas in the throat...) and it's apparently going to happen to more than a few people on the new Indy.
If they want to be upset, let them be upset. Any review is just someone's opinion. And you know what they say about opinions...They're like armpits; everyone's got a couple, and they all stink.
Slashdot Mirror
Or paste this piezoelectric material on the walls of Congress and solve the energy crisis. There's enough bulls*** being thrown around there to power the world a hundred times over...
Hey, they don't call it "The Slashdot Effect" for nothing...
I second the recommendation of "Wheel of Time" series...most kids actually will be able to absorb the series, particularly if they are as voracious a reader as you are giving them credit for.
I disagree with the timetable on them, however...I went through the first 9 in the span of just over a summer...but I've been known to devour 100 pages in about an hour and a half...your reading rates may vary. I'm now anxiously awaiting the 12th and final novel...ghost-written by someone who was told the story by The Dragon himself, the old fashioned way; he became a gleeman for a very select audience just before he passed away.
I was also delighted to see recommendations for Fred Saberhagen's "Book of Swords" and "Book of Lost Swords." My dad had both of those and I picked them up on a whim (my father's sci-fi/sci-fantasy collection is better than most public library's, and often better than bookstores...) at approximately 14, and promptly devoured them.
I also recommend Piers Anthony, but not the Xanth novels after about 15...I'd put them on the "Incarnations of Immortality" series. Xanth is great...as long as you are SCAdian and can get some of the in-jokes about the Dark Horde...
Terry Brooks also has several good novels appropriate for kids; I'd recommend the first "Shanarra" trilogy (Sword of Shanarra, Elfstones of Shanarra, and Wishsong of Shanarra) and his "Knight of the Word" trilogy; it's one of his more recent works (Running with the Demon, A Knight of the Word, and Angel Fire East) but a very good read indeed.
If your kids lean more toward a fantasy bent (I happened to...) I'd also recommend Raymond E. Feist's "Riftwar Saga" It starts with "Magician: Apprentice" and "Magician: Master," and concludes the initial tetralogy with "Silverthorn" and "A Darkness at Sethanon"
I think your kids should be exposed to everything that you can expose them to; to assume that they are not old enough to understand something may be underestimating their capacity to learn and grow. I am endlessly glad that my mother and father just pointed me at good books and let me go, with no pretense or explanation before I read the book. Of course, when your mother is a librarian, and your father has a collection of well over 1000 sci-fi/fantasy novels, you have a bit of a leg up on variety...
I completely agree with you. During College, every time my (now) wife and I saw a teaser/trailer for a movie that we thought looked interesting, we scanned the local papers and school paper for the reviews of the movie, and if the critics all hated it, we went and saw it. 9 times in 10 we were glad we did. The people who write those reviews are almost always elitist movie snobs, who are missing the point that it's a *movie*, not high art. People go to the movies to be entertained for 2 hours. A simple popcorn-muncher is sometimes all you really want. I'm personally looking forward to the new Indy. The other thing that ruins reviews like this is a fanboy gets his crush on, and waits in anticipation for 10-20 years, and has all these grandiose ideas of what the movie should or shouldn't look/feel/smell like, and then there's no possible way for the movie to live up to that much internal-hype. That's what happened with the new Star Wars trilogy (although Jar-Jar made me want to stab Lucas in the throat...) and it's apparently going to happen to more than a few people on the new Indy. If they want to be upset, let them be upset. Any review is just someone's opinion. And you know what they say about opinions...They're like armpits; everyone's got a couple, and they all stink.
http://xkcd.com/54/ Science...It works, bitches! ...I defy anyone to put it as succinctly as that...
*Ducks from the incoming flame-storm*