geekhack
geekhack Community => Off Topic => Topic started by: fohat.digs on Fri, 18 May 2012, 12:04:16
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Background:
My son is not quite 13 years old. He is very intelligent, an avid reader, and reads way above his level, but is rather meek and not very "worldly" - that is, he has a very gentle nature and we have sheltered him from as much of the ugliness of the world as we could.
Sometimes I am surprised by his seeming contradictions, for example, he will gladly spend hours at the computer ruthlessly killing thousands of enemies and aliens, yet he refuses to kill a fly in the house with a rubber band gun (this used to be his job, I made him the rubber band gun several years ago and he is very good with it) because he says that he does not want to kill a living thing.
Admirable sentiments (except concerning insects in the house), but this gives you an idea of his thinking.
Request:
I need some good summer reading material, but I want it to be clean of sex and gratuitous ugliness as much as possible. Note the use of the word "ugliness" and not "violence" since they are not necessarily the same and some violence is much uglier than other.
He has devoured many major popular things like Harry Potter and Hunger Games, and when he was a couple of years younger his all-time favorites were Laurence Yep's Dragon books and TA Barron's Young Merlin series. He has enjoyed Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan series (refused Uglies/Pretties because his sister read it first), I can't remember them all off the top of my head, I may edit this later as they come to me.
Strangely, even though he is almost obsessed with dragons, he has started some things, Eragon and Wizard of Earthsea come to mind, that have not held his interest and he set them aside.
So, how about tossing some ideas out there for me? He is past "kiddie" stuff now, but it is hard to find "headier" works that are still clean.
I don't want him sitting in from of the computer all summer, even though he is using a very handsome bolt-modded black label Model M with red-dyed WASD and Escape keys!
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Pullman
I liked to read those, but don't know if he'll like them. Since he didn't like Eragon (althought I wasn't a fan of Eragon either).
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the name of the wind and the wise man's fear by patrick rothfuss
mistborn series and other novels by brandon sanderson
i am also partial to the saga of recluce by le modesitt jr
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Hobbit and Lord of the Rings would be obvious if hasn't read, the above are good suggestions, Chronicles of Narnia if don't feel it's too kids stuff, Neil Gaiman's Stardust, etc... Stephen King's Dark Tower series... Goodkind's Sword of Truth series, Lukyanenko's Watch series. I was never much into the whole swords and sorcery stuff really, more of a sci fi person.
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Conan by Robert E. Howard.
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Jack McDevitt
Alastair Reynolds
Larry Niven's Ringworld books
Michael Flynn's *Star series (Lodestar, Firestar, ...)
In order of decreasing 'ugliness' although this is coming from someone that read The Shadow of the Torturer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shadow_of_the_Torturer) at age 12.
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I would second the "Hobbit", but yeah, that's kinda obvious material I suppose.
Um... I think the "MythAdventures" series might be fun. I had the earlier ones 1978-late 80's. Myth Conceptions and Myth Directions come to mind (I think, lol), it's been many years so I don't remember other titles now. I was not much of a reader as a kid/teen, more into the technical research kinda thing. I loved "A brief History of Time" as a child, so that kinda gives you my background, lol. Early geekdome.
I do recall enjoying the MythAdventures books. What about another obvious one like "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"?
=)
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Thanks for the suggestions.
I read many books to my children, many large, like Lord of the Rings, Earthsea, Harry Potter, etc, when they were in the 6-10 age ranges and could not have really "gotten" them on their own, but with a "group read" out loud and the ability to ask questions, it brought it alive for them (remarkable experience for me, too, re-living it with them).
Some of these they will go back to now, some they won't.
Conan is too "old-fashioned" feeling for today's oh-so sophisticated kids, and I am going to wait another couple of years for some others like Niven's "Known Space" series (a teen fave for me, for sure) which got a little creepy here and there.
Keep the suggestions coming. I knew this thread would get some action.
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Enders Game.
And do it before it becomes a crappy movie.
As usual, ripster hits the nail on the head!
Also:
Le Petit Prince (get the 1943 translation and the original French!)
Everything by Edward Abbey, starting with
http://www.amazon.com/Monkey-Wrench-Gang-Edward-Abbey/dp/0903937603
Ringworld Engineers
Snow Crash
Golden Compass trilogy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Dark_Materials
Everything by Douglas Adams!
Give him a good dose of mythology, philosophy, and psychology.
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I highly recommend the Philip Reeve series, Mortal Engines, Predator's Gold, Infernal Devices and A Darkling Plain.
I see Tolkien's books have already been recommended.
You son may also like the warhammer and 40k based novels, some of them are very enjoyable and even with all the bloodshed they aren't exactly gruesome for the mostpart.
The Sherlock Holmes books might be good as well.
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He loved the Reeves Mortal Engines series and finished it just a couple of months ago.
That is exactly the sort of thing he likes, and the right level.
I think something like Douglas Adams is a bit too obtuse, just yet.
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Enders Game.
And do it before it becomes a crappy movie.
[video=youtube;JzuW9j7fXgk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzuW9j7fXgk[/video]
Totally agree with Enders game. I am a teen, so just books that I've read...I also recommend the other Enders book. The Young Bond (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Bond) books (if you can find all of them...they took a while to get to the U.S.), and the Alex Rider (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Rider) series... though both of those series are finished, they are very good reads. Also, if you haven't already I highly suggest a Kindle with the E-Ink for your son.
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I dont know how i forgot this one:
Spider Robinson
All of the Callahan's series is fantastic.
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L. E. Modesitt Jr. - The Recluce novels rock, and his non-series works are pretty darn cool too.
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Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronicles_of_Amber) series
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I love Zelazny, and am actually re-reading Lord of Light right now, my once-every-other-decade ritual, but I think Amber is just a bit over his head for now.
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A little childish but he might like The Maximum Ride series, my little cousin seems to like it, I read it and while not really that intellectual it does suck you in.
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Ripster - Emma Watson was flat halfway through the movie series, and look how great she turned out. If my son was at Hogwarts, he would just be finishing 2nd year.
Dante - Hardly a worry about that. He is so skinny people must wonder if we are starving him.
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Some of my favourite series growing up were The Belgariad and The Malloreon by David Eddings, Redwall by Brian Jacques and The Farseer Trilogy (and anything following) by Robin Hobb. Robin Hobbs' books are for an older audience I think as her protagonists can get very anti heroic and depressive, but I feel this gives her characters a more normal demeanor and I appreciate her take of fantay as it's not a straight up 'wazards, magic and goblins' affair.
EDIT; Oh, and the Northern Lights by Phillip Pullman as someone suggested.
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Dante - Hardly a worry about that. He is so skinny people must wonder if we are starving him.
BTW - if that's actually a worry of yours like it has been with my son, it's a hell of a change but you could try going gluten free. My son typically has been putting on ~4lbs a year. We went gluten free and he put on 4lbs in 3 months with nearly zero height change. He's a few years younger than your son.
I have a hard time not exposing my kids to material that's too mature because they are misleadingly large (both 99th% in height) and tremendously smart. People were trying to talk to my son and get intelligible responses at 16 months.
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Treasure Island
Should be required reading for that age. ;-)
Also, along those lines, if you can find a copy anywhere, I recommend:
American Captain
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Other than LOTR and other 'classics' check out anything by David Eddings. I enjoyed reading those when I was your son's age.
Ha, I see All The Fire has beat me to it.
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Warlock series by Stasheff is excellent.
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Ugh, I hated Ender's Game. Story of a kid that never fails at anything.
Stanislav Lem wrote some very clever and funny sci-fi, I recommend Star Diaries.
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To me these are some obvious choices, but tastes may vary:
EVERYTHING by Robert A. Heinlein
ANYTHING by Arthur C. Clarke
ANYTHING by Piers Anthony
You said almost obsessed with dragons, then Anne McCaffrey is the author to look for. Start with earlier works because they tend to build on the Pern "universe". See: http://pern.srellim.org/readorder.htm. Personally, I started with "The White Dragon" and it got me hooked.
I intentionally did not specify any specific books by these authors because between them there are a couple of hundred novels and I have thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of them.
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Enders Game. And do it before it becomes a crappy movie.
Make sure to also get the parallel novel "Ender's Shadow"