Asimov is too high? Hmmph. Asimov is IMO unsuitable for reading once you’re past the age of 14; I read The Stars Like Dust when I was twenty, and it reigns supreme as one of the worst books I’ve read. I’d suggest she give Asimov another look, inasmuch as the problems I had with him weren’t problems I noticed when I was thirteen and devouring his books by the truckload. At any rate, if Asimov is too high, Red Mars and the rest of Kim Stanley Robinson’s oeuvre doesn’t stand a chance.
Books that you can pull the science out of? I take it she’s looking for hard SF. In that case, scrap the Bradbury (sadness!) and load up a double-helping of Asimov and Clarke. Red Mars etc. is very good hard SF, but like I said, it’s pretty crunchy, pretty sophisticate–not at all something for a midlevel adolescent reader.
If we’re looking at books for kids who are required to read them, and we want books with strong scientific elements, that changes the recommendations quite a bit. From this thread, here’s what I’d pull out (acknowledging that I’ve not come close to reading everything here):
-Madeleine L’engle’s books talk extensively about tesseracts, and are perfect for the assignment.
-Arthur C. Clarke and Asimov put pretty much all their attention into the science, wrapped in a golly-gosh whizbang adventure. (Asimov more so than Clarke).
Hard Science Fiction for pre-teens. Not a very large category. I’ll have to think about this. I still recommend the tripod books. I still read a least one Science Fiction book a week. Those books put me on that path 30 years ago. What teacher can find fault in that?
Well I wouldn’t say hard science fiction so much as, I don’t know, idea-centric science fiction. I took a look at that Feed book she mentioned, and it certainly wouldn’t qualify as hard sci fi.
Steve and Terry Englehart (Steve is well-known to comics fans of a certain generation) wrote a series called The DNAgers. Twins Jack and Mary find themselves displaced in time and in the bodies of various ancestors, also twins and also 13. History and science fiction.
I haven’t read them, but I’m a big fan of Steve’s other work so how bad can it be?
Bujold, although my favorite author, is probably way to advanced for middle school people and there is far too much good stuff, ie romance, sex and violence for teachers. And honestly, at that age, fantasy is probably more fun. An excelent suggestion in that department is Tamora Pierce. All of her books are great and suitable for anyone over the age of 12.
As for science fiction, the Pegasus books by McCaffery is cool and might be okay. I don’t rememer the level of science in it, but Welcome to the Ark by Stephanie Tolan (I think) is very good.
And Heinlein really is for people that age. That’s when I started reading sci-fi, with his Red Planet. I tried to read his stuff again at 15 or 16 and found it impossible dull and formulaic, even though I loved it as a kid.
Well, I still stand by The Sterkarm Handshake by Susan Price, my younger kid read it when he was about 12, and I think the science could be taken out of it and studied.
And yes I do think much of Heinlein would be appropriate, I was about 12 when I began reading him.
About Pern:
I enjoy the series, but wasn’t it supposed to be more sci-fi type stuff?
And didn’t she say no sex? Those dragons get pretty frisky.
Heinlein juveniles, for certain. They’ve been attracting fans in the 11-99 age group for half a century now; no reason why they will stop with this generation. “Have Space Suit Will Travel” is perhaps the ideal introduction to SF for a young person. “Podkayne of Mars” is slightly over the age in terms of target audience, but perhaps one of the best girl-as-protagonist SF stories.
Likewise Madeleine L’Engle. Much of her fiction is not SF, but all of it is excellent children’s literature.
Spider Robinson’s “The Free Lunch” – and no other Spider for this age group.
Zenna Henderson’s two books of The People are ideal.
Andre Norton’s age appropriate stuff – her work ranges from “good light read” to quite good. My wife fondly remembers “Star Rangers” – I found the Time Traders/Galactic Derelict series to be great at that age.
And I remember enjoying “Star Ship on Saddle Mountain” at 11 or 12 though I couldn’t tell you much of the plot or who the author is.
Fifthing (sixthing? seventhing?) Andre Norton. A personal fave of mine was * The Zero Stone*. And definitely don’t miss Sargasso of Space and its sequels.
The John Christopher books–the Tripod books in particular–are definitely recommended. As are the L’engle (Wrinkle in Time, etc.)
I’m trying to think of all the SF I read as a kid, and not many are sticking in my memory. (Don’t give the kids Motherlines. I pulled it off the adult shelf at the library when I first got my adult card, figuring it would be like the stuff in the juvenile section. Woah, was I in for a shock!) I remember an anthology, edited by Asimov, called Tomorrow’s Children. Some good stories there. And I do know that my 8 year old loves the Space Cat books (and many thanks to the people who recommended it). That may be younger than you’re after, though.
I’m not up on recent SF–I’ve been taking notes from other posts in this thread, for my own kids.
I started reading “A Princess of Mars” to my daughter (who is well past pre-teen) and was surprised at the level of vocabulary - very high. I didn’t read them until high school, and had no problem, but a pre-teen might find it tough going. On the other hand, they’d be well set for the SATs. (I think people were smarter in 1912 if this was pulp!)
In the late '50s one publisher had a whole series of juvenile sf books, with a rocket on the spine. I know at least one Lester del Rey book was included. I have a few - the series is long gone, but maybe some of the books are in print. However almost all the science is dead wrong. Nourse had Raiders of the Rings, set in Saturn, which is seriously out of date.
Andre Norton books, however, are far enough away from Earth to have not aged much.
If Heinlein is too high, I suppose Jules Verne and HG Wells are also. Humph.
Enchantress from the Stars and its sequels, by Sylvia Louise Engdahl.
Another vote for The Mad Scientist’s Club.
Another vote for the “Danny Dunn” series, by Jay Williams. Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine might be interesting, just to show what people in the early 1960s thought computers would be like.
Sort of science-fictionish are
the “Homer Price” series, by Robert McCloskey;
the “Encyclopedia Brown” series, by Donald J. Sobol;
and the “Alvin” series, by Clifford B. Hicks.
