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From: preece@uicsl.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: SF for Kids - (nf)
Message-ID: <3001@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 26-Sep-83 23:23:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.3001
Posted: Mon Sep 26 23:23:43 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Sep-83 07:17:01 EDT
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#R:inuxe:-61900:uicsl:10700035:000:1598
uicsl!preece    Sep 26 11:00:00 1983

I'm not sure I like to break out "kids'" SF from the rest. The
first SF I read (about sixth grade) was all adult stuff: the
Kuttner Gallagher stories (I think the collected title was
Robots Have No Tales, but I couldn't swear to it), the Fadiman
math collections (fantasia Mathematica, et al; "A Subway Named Moebius"
is one of my favorite shorts), and Starship Troopers. Needless to
say, reading them now I get a host of connotations that went right past
me at the time, but I loved them at the level I read them, too.

I'd say it's most important to pick things that will hit the areas
where the kid's imagination has already been sensitized. I was into
math at the time, hence the math-related stories. Try a few different
things and see what works. Most kids are likely to be happiest with
a fair amount of action, but even that isn't necessarily required.
I would say, though, that you shouldn't stick to juvenile titles.
Most of them are just not as good, and you want kids to be reading the
best written material they can handle (the Heinlein juveniles and
some others are clearly exceptions to this rule, books that grownups
read despite the juvenile label).

[Actually, the books I was most hooked on were the Swallows and Amazons
series by Arthur Ransome, but they aren't SF by any possible stretch of
the imagination...]

The principal rule, though, is get them reading SOMETHING. Kids who
read and collect comic books are still likely to turn into readers of
regular books later, and if anything correlates with success it's
a love of reading.

scott preece
pur-ee!uiucdcs!uicsl!preece