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Hermione comments on [Book Suggestions] Summer Reading for Younglings. - Less Wrong Discussion
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I loved these books as an early teen:
Fantasy: The Hobbit (Film coming out in a few months). No hidden pro-science virtues but a lovely, funny book.
Adventure stories: 1. Anything by Jules Verne e.g. Twenty thousand leagues under the sea. Fits into a science-as-exploration theme. 2. Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost World - a dinosaur book - or some Sherlock Holmes: speckled band, hound of the baskervilles...) 3. Willard Price's adventure series (writing is a bit poor, but that's completely made up for by the exciting-ness and delightful descriptions of wild animals)
Sci-Fi: 1. John Wyndam (E.g Day of the Triffids, The Chrysalids). She may find the post-apocalyptic themes a little distressing though, so that might be a 'for later'. 2. Asimov, I Robot series
I liked Heinlein a lot (better than Asimov or Norton) as an early teen, but I've heard mixed things about how well his books hold up these days.
I recently reread Time Enough for Love and it still holds up -- it's not nearly as anti-feminist as some of his hard sci-fi. Stranger in a Strange Land is slightly less relevant, though a great deal more subversive and slightly more anti-feminist.
On second thought, I would give neither book to e.g. my 13-year-old cousin.
I probably should have mentioned that I was a teenager in the sixties, and what was available to me was the juveniles. I think my favorites were The Star Beast and Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, with Citizen of the Galaxy trailing not too far behind.
I think I only read Rocketship Galileo once, even though Nazis in abandoned alien tunnels on the moon seemed wonderfully extravagant. I reread it recently, and found it had so much immediately-post-WWII material as to be rather sad and grim compared to most of the juveniles.