User: sheilah

L'Engle, Pullman, Lewis, etc

On: Sci Fi Literature 101?

These are more fantasy than scifi but when
I was in middle school, I couldn't get enough
of
Madeleine L'Engle - A Swiftly Tilting Planet
and others in that series
and
C S Lewis' Narnia chronicles (allegory aside, it
was full of adventure).

...and more recently I just read Philip Pullman's
The Goldan Compus, and The Subtle Knife. I
can't recommend them enough. I would say he
is on par with L'Engle and perhaps better.

Other fantasy juvy's I recommend are Ursula
K Leguin's Wizard of Earthsea books (except
Tehanu is more adult than juvy) and Patricia
McKillip's RiddleMaster of Eld series. Patricia
McKillip is a wonderful prose stylist.

Robin McKinley's Damarian books are also
fairly decent fantasy that a girl would probably
enjoy.

as for scifi at that age, I read Bradbury,
Clarke, Andre Norton, Heinlein, Asimov, and
anything else that caught my fancy at the library.
But since I was 13 there have been a lot of
great new authors, especially in the 80's and 90's
so check them out.

Take her to the library and browse the sf
section...

I also recommend checking out a list of the
nebulas and hugos for high quality book
suggestions.

coffee (& alcohol's) effect on strokes

On: Caffeine Good For Long-Term Memory

Salon just ran an article about how a caffeine & ethonal cocktail protected rat's brains during strokes.

Interesting stuff.