I have a friend who is a middle school librarian, and she realized recently that her sci fi collection is pretty pitiful. Since she knows I’m a Sci Fi/Fantasy fan, she asked me to go to the bookstore with her and beef it up.
I failed pretty miserably. I never really realized it before, but my favorites are all fantasy. So I thought I would ask all the clever Dopers at Cafe Society: What science fiction books must an eleven-to-thirteen year old not miss?
Oh, and one rule: no sex. (In the books that is - I’m all for it IRL.) She says she can justify anything else to the PTA - violence, drugs, “witchcraft” - but sex is to remain off screen unless it is Very Important to the story.
Asimov - The Stars Like Dust, The Foundation Trilogy, I, Robot, The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, etc., etc. Great starters for younger readers, and the Good Doctor never sullied his prose with anything as sordid as sex. He saved that for conversations!
Heinlein - All the Juveniles - Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, The Green Hills of Earth, Farmer In The Sky, The Star Beast, The Rolling Stones, Citizen of The Galaxy, Tunnel In The Sky, etc.
L. Sprague de Camp, Isaac Asimov, James Schmitz’ “Witches of Karres”. Fritz Leiber. Ursula LeGuin, Earthsea books (but that is fantasy mostly).
…boyyyyy am I out of date. Partly it’s because anything written before 1960 is OK by the rules stated, and offhand I can’t be sure recent material has the required level of purity.
Some of these are a bit of a stretch for middle school, but y’know I started reading the stuff in fifth grade, and it didn’t matter, it held the attention.
If the two named books above are available, definitely get them.
While it’s correct that there’s no sex in any of the books you mentioned, in The Robots of Dawn, the next book after The Naked Sun, there is one sex scene. You also didn’t mention The Currents of Space (which hinges on some astrophysical speculation which has since been proven wrong… But it’s a reasonable speculation) or my personal favorite, Pebble in the Sky. You might also add the Lucky Starr series: Again, they’re somewhat outdated, but in the newer editions, Asimov says in a prefix what’s outdated about them, and a bit about how he would have written them differently.
And I’ll second a lump-sum recommendation for any and all Heinlein juveniles. My personal favorite is Space Cadet, but there’s a lot of difference of opinion on which is best. In any event, though, none of his juveniles are bad. Of Heinlein’s other books, Orphans of the Sky contains no sex, and probably should be considered a juvie, but generally isn’t; Citizen of the Galaxy likewise, though there is mention (without description) of pornography. The Door into Summer contains no sex, but two of the major supporting characters are nudists, which may not fly with the PTA. Despite what you might think from the unrelated movie by the same name, there’s also no sex in Starship Troopers, and I’m pretty sure there’s none in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (though there is some discussion of it, and marital structures which would be considered very nonstandard here and now). But those last two would probably be a bit of a chore for all but the most motivated preteens. Anything else Heinlein wrote, you’re going to get some sex.
Also, this is bordering on fantasy, but every school library absolutely must have Le’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time and A Wind in the Door. A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and other books by her are optional, but those two are required.
I absolutely must recommend Norby the Mixed-Up Robot and the further Norby books, by Isaac and Janet Asimov. As a pre-teen and early teen, I found this series really enjoyable and fun.
The Heinlein juveniles may be a little too sophisticated for pre-teens. They’re generally aimed at 12-16 year olds. For example, Have Space Suit - Will Travel has extensive ruminations on calculating the distance and time to Pluto using acceleration formulas - to a kid who hasn’t even mastered multiplication and doesn’t know what Algebra is, that’s not likely to be very interesting. Lots of long passages about the engineering of space suits and such which would also make a small child’s eyes glaze over.
You might consider the Danny Dunn series - they’re aimed at slightly younger readers.
Asimov wrote a children’s book called “Norby, the Mixed-up Robot”. I haven’t read it, but from the title it sounds like it might be aimed at youngsters.
Robert Silverberg wrote a juvenile called “Revolt on Alpha Centauri C” which I read as a kid in a Scholastic edition. It was a fun kid’s book.
But while this isn’t science fiction, I highly, highly recommend The Mad Scientist’s Club by Bertrand R. Brinley. Suitable for pre-teens, it’s a great book that I must have read 50 times as a young boy. Cool kids in a club making other kids and adults look foolish because they use science and their heads to solve problems while everyone else muddles along. It’s a collection of short stories, very easy to read.
Asimov wrote a ton of short stories that are great. My favorite story is “Breeds there a Man?”. And, no, there isn’t any sex in it. I’d get some of his short story collections.
You might also want to think about some Arthur C Clark.
You’d be surprised. WhyKid started Algebra last year - in fifth grade, at age 10. They’re teaching this stuff way earlier than when we were kids. And he’s in the “slow” group.
Although I prefer the originals, kids like the Silverman/Asimov novelizations, especially The Positronic Man. WhyKid, who just starting reading for pleasure this year, zipped through that one (and came to me in tears at the end, for a great conversation about death) and ripped apart *I, Robot * for being unfaithful to Asimov’s world view when we saw it in theaters.
Also, some of the Asimov compilations are good: Gold, in particular I like, as it contains some of his best short stories, some essays on the SF genre, and finally writing on science fiction writing itself. It was a great history written by someone who actually lived and created it. Short stories are sometimes easier to get kids into, since so much of what they’re used to reading is short.
There’s another Asimov anthology whose name escapes me at the moment, but it was fantastic - it had a collection of short stories and a collection of non-fiction essays. I probably wouldn’t have read his non-fiction if it hadn’t been nicely packaged with his fiction. Turns out his writing is just as easy to follow when he’s explaining complicated stuff. One of the essays finally got it through my thick skull why the earth weighs nothing and the difference between weight and mass. Anyone remember the title of the anthology?
You may be thinking of the collection Gold which contains stories and essays (don’t remember if they’re science essays). You may also be thinking of one of his opus books, marking his hundredth, two hundredth book etc. . .(Opus 100, Opus 200 . . .) These contained a selection of stories and essays.
[Comes back from the bookshelf, a bit dusty and sneezing]
That’s OK, you’re a LateComer!
Here it is! The Edge of Tomorrow. It contains “Nightfall,” “Breeds There a Man,” “The Ugly Little Boy” and “The Last Question,” among others, as well as essays on science such as " The Bridge of the Gods" (Rainbows and prisms), “The Plane Truth,” (Non-Euclidean Geometry), and “The Man Who Massed the Earth,” (which I mentioned above.)
I’ll third Norton and add that it’s her early stuff that’s SF, most of her later output is fantasy though she had continued the Solar Queen series. But if you can get your hands on Sargasso of Space, The Last Patrol, Daybreak: 2250 A.D., Judgement on Janus, Galactic Derelict, etc., you’ll be doing OK.
Are you speaking of the “lurid pin-up pictures” the People used as trade goods on Finster?
Remember that when this book was published, “pin-ups” would have been those painted by Vargas and his contemporaries. Not pornography, not even the Playboy centerfold. Just slightly racy depictions of the female form, more or less clothed – and, by the way, sexy as hell.
