My stepson enjoyed the Artemis Fowl books. My nephew really liked My Name is Legion. I think I read A Wrinkle in Time around that age and enjoyed it. I can also second Old Man’s War, a kid might like it a lot. Of the Heinlein juvies, my favorite is Tunnel in the Sky.
I think I read the John Carter (plus some of the Tarzan, Carson of Venus, Pellucidar) stories around that age, but I probably wouldn’t recommend them to anybody. Same thing with Sheckley.
Don’t kids go to the library any more? Just about every book listed so far I discovered at that age on my own by just wandering through the sci-fi section of the library and grabbing stuff that looked interesting.
Gotta go with this list, which I post every time this question comes up:
[ul]
[li]Rocket Ship Galileo[/li][li]Space Cadet[/li][li]Red Planet[/li][li]Between Planets[/li][li]The Rolling Stones[/li][li]Farmer in the Sky[/li][li]Starman Jones[/li][li]The Star Beast[/li][li]Tunnel in the Sky[/li][li]Time for the Stars[/li][li]Citizen of the Galaxy[/li][li]Have Space Suit—Will Travel[/li][/ul]
Also agree about Brandbury, Asimov, and would suggest a bit of Clarke.
I always wonder if someone will come out with an updated series – Danny Dunn and the Nanobots, Danny Dunn and the Genetic Engineers, etc.
Let me bring things into the current century by offering the Union Station series by E.M. Foner, starting with Date Night On Union Station. It’s a wonderful series, with an interesting and well thought out universe and characters to match. It’s set on a distant station owned by powerful but benevolent AIs and is told from the viewpoint of the ambassador from Earth, a resourceful woman struggilng to get by on a meagre salary in a very different kind of environment. Contains no blood and gore, no explicit sex, or sex of any kind if I recall, and generally is a fun read from start to finish.
The catch is, it’s only available for the Kindle, or for a device equipped with a Kindle app (most computers and Android products, I think the Mac too, can run the Kindle app). The nice thing is, the book is free. There are seven books in the series, and the rest cost, I believe, $2.99 each unless you have Kindle Unlimited, in which case they are free, of course.
So, do check it out. I thoroughly enjoyed the books myself, and am well past adolescence. Have read all seven in the series and am eagerly awaiting the eighth, which is due out this December.
S.M. Stirling is good when he keeps his word count under control. I’d recommend Conquistador as a great single book.
Yeah, but you might want to stay away from Stirling’s Drakka series. Not really for 12 year olds.
Start him out with some short stories. Even an anthology.
I was reading Stephen King by the time I was 12, but for more kid-friendly stuff, I’d start him off with a few classics to get a bead on his tastes:
A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury.
All You Zombies by Heinlein.
The Jaunt by Stephen King.
There Will Come Soft Rains by Bradbury.
The Last Question by Isaac Asimov.
A Pail of Air by Fritz Leiber.
The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin.
Those were my favorites when I was kid/teen. And that’ll give you a good sense on what he leans towards, I think.
As far as recommending a classic novel: War of the Worlds.
When I was 12 I read everything I could find from Andre Norton. Kinda dated now but many were written as juvenile fiction in the '50s and ‘60s. I also still remember *Galactic Derelict *and *The Mad Scientists’ Club *series of four books written for children by Bertrand R. Brinley
OW! tmi, dude.
The OP can probably get a few dozen issues of Analog or other sci-fi anthologies at garage sales or used bookstores. The stories may be a tad dated, but any one issue will have a fair amount of variety.
Well, it’s futurism, all right, and it’s certainly a piece of some sort. But let’s just say that there’s a very good reason that it was rejected by all the publishers who saw it: It’s horribly written. Nor is the lens of history any kinder to it: There are a few things Verne got right in it, but less than usual for him, and there’s a heck of a lot more that he got howlingly wrong.
If you’re going to give the kid Verne, start him off with either Around the World in Eighty Days or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Harry Harrison’s *Stainless Steel Rat *series.
And The Technicolor Time Machine
Oh my, I guess you misunderstood, I meant that I could handle sex in books at that age. I was reading my parents’ library by then and often, sex happened in one of their books, but I already knew the basic facts from sex ed in school and it never was an issue for me. As an adolescent in the early eighties in Germany, you were just regularly confronted with sex in mainstream media, the typical American prudery just wasn’t a thing, and isn’t until today, though there was a little backlash in mainstream largess since then, but now all the kids have internet access, so there’s that. And I think it’s way better to learn about sex from good literature than from online porn.
No, he was trying to be funny.
My nephew lives in a small village in rural Germany, and public libraries aren’t anywhere as ubiquitous here as in America, so he doesn’t really have access.
So, whooshed again :smack::). Nevermind.
Poul Anderson. Any and every Poul Anderson.
I wouldn’t recommend the Shadowspawn trilogy for a twelve-year-old either.
The *Tales of the Ketty Jay *series starting with Retribution Falls are all good. Very like Firefly in feel.
More of a steampunk/alternative history sort of thing but Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan Trilogy is a solid read.
Or just try Hard Luck Hank.
“Handling it myself” is pretty much all most of us were dong at age twelve.