TLDR: Leanings towards SciFi/fantasy, but open to other adventures. Prefer classic fiction, but it’s not exclusively so. Shying away from high levels of poignancy, very complex and subtle mythology, and books with a multitude of difficult to keep track of names.
Sorry for the length below. I find it difficult to avoid coming across as namby-pamby when asking for a recommendation for something I’ve already put a lot of thought into but haven’t found the ‘right’ answer to yet. So I figured going into a bit more detail about the thought process might help.
I’m basically looking for a gripping adventure story, the kind of thing you can listen to in a van for a ten-hour roadtrip. He likes science fiction and most of the stories I writefor him are in more of a fantasy setting. But if there’s adventure to be had, genera isn’t as important as a good tale.
He’s a voracious reader, and storytelling is something we share; bedtime stories have never stopped and I still read to him for about a half hour to an hour a night. He loved the entire Dahl catalogue and several of the Oz books. He really liked the *Phantom Tollbooth *(though not as much as he will when he rereads it later in life). *Treasure Island *was a blast (had a lot of fun with the pirate voices!). We finished the Hobbit a little while ago and are in the foothills of LotR. He’s rereading the *Hobbit *on his own time now, it being “the greatest book ever.”
We make up a lot of stories on our own, mostly in the fantasy/science fiction realm. We’ll do that on the road too, but I’m hoping for a great story adventure or two to keep us entertained.
His mom passed away some months ago, and this is our first family roadtrip without her. It’s going to be difficult to say the least. I mention it because as important as, say, *Charlotte’s Web *and Watership Down are, I’d rather not delve into some of those themes on this trip. Harry Potter books are fantastic and are in his future, but though they’re fairly light on the orphaning I want to wait until he’s fully grounded in Tolkien.
To idiosyncratically narrow it a bit more, I think I’d like to shy away from books with sprawling characters (the kind of book where a cheat-sheet list of who’s who helps) or intricate mythologies. Minimizing characters is because those are harder to keep track of on an audiobook and with all the stops and the festival in the midst, it could get distractedly confusing.
By ‘intricate mythologies’, I’m shying away from loading his head up with two massively rich backstories and happenings. As in, if I were reading him Dune (soon!), I’d shy away from LotR so he’s got one complex mythos in his head at a time. I think Narnia might be just on the inside of that line (though there may be a level of subtlety that escaped me when I read it).
I tend to lean towards the classics, but not exclusively so. Among a host of other reasons, I want to instil in him just how great ‘classic’ literature is. That way when he’s in eighth-grade English he won’t reflexively moan that they’re making him read *Silas Marner *or whatever.
That aside, I don’t normally avoid difficult language with him but given the environment (so many distractions on the road) and how you can’t easily jump back a paragraph to reread, I’m looking for something that’s not so demanding as you have to pay close attention to the phrasing. As in we took a Poe break a little while ago, and the *Cask of Amontillado *took a lot for him to follow.
So… so maybe Narnia? Or maybe I should keep to one Epic Fantasy at a time. (Though if Narnia, in chronological or published order?) Verne? Heretical to say, but possibly too dry for a road trip. Billy Budd? I don’t remember how engaging it was, but certainly more than Moby Dick. *Frankenstein, Dracula *or Jekyll n’ Hyde? I know nothing about Ready Player One; I like to avoid even the most basic plot spoilers so have no clue if it’s appropriate. I have ideas, but so far none has leapt out as the books to get.
Thanks for any ideas~
Rhythm