Title pretty much sums it up. I want to start reading SF/Fantasy books to my son in the near future. He’s almost 7mo’s - getting bigger by the day! - so I have some time to accumulate a collection.
Calling all parents! Or everyone and anyone who was brought up on SF/Fantasy by their parents! I know we have a few members who fit this category and I am sure several others that I do not know of. I greatly appreciate any insight!
What are some good yet acceptable books I could start with? What to gradually get into as he gets older?
Perhaps list your thoughts and ideas with a recommended age number next to each novel/author? All the way up and what I can recommend him when he gets to the age of reading on his own… I want to hear them all! Never a better time to start collecting them now, whether e-format or physical, and I can start seeking these out now for the future I love used bookstores but I was a late bloomer into the SF/Fantasy world. Again, any insight would be most helpful.
Thank you in advance.
Much love to you Chrono’s and a goodnight to you all.
ooOo, a few that I personally enjoy: David Weber, Raymond E Feist, Orson Scott Card, Tad Williams, Frank Herbert, Madeleine L’Engle, Robin Hobb, etc etc etc
I’d hold off on Orson Scott Card for a bit, depending on age.
I remember the first two Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books being pretty good, but again, I’d wait a bit.
As for fantasy… I wouldn’t say you need to be at a certain age for this, but The Inheritance Saga (Eragon and its three sequels) is a classic and a must-read. It can be a bit dense for younger readers. I’d say being around age 11-16 is perfect for the series. Just brace yourself, it’s going to be about 7000 pages total.
Artemis Fowl has run its course, and now’s as good a time as ever to read the eight-part series before Disney craps all over it. In terms of sci-fi, this is definitely on the lower end of age requirements, even more so in the first few books. (Age 10-14 should be good)
Airman is another great one by Eoin Colfer, though it’s only a one-off. Again, I’d say it’s great for a 13-ish year old.
I know many ppl who read the harry potter books when quite young but from around 7 years old this can be good for some depending on how challenging they like their books.
Yeah I feel like a lot of sci fi is better for older ones, though some of the easy read dr who books are ok as a start. I only got into sci fi later too but more for the complex themes rather than tech appeal etc.
Tbh when I was younger I just read mostly like fantasy or animal tales. If you want just random fantasy there are lots of books about wizards and witches.
Even Julia Donaldson (like she wrote gruffalo) books are kind of fantasy if you wanna go realllyy easy. And meg and mog lool. Those kind of books are good for the very young especially if you want to encourage them to read themselves. You can read books that are a little harder if you are the one reading to them but start with fairytale like stuff i’d say when very young. But good time yeah to accumulate more books for future. From 11 i think many books become a lot more accessible.
There are also those sorts of dystopian stories by YA authors that are very easy to read. I like the declaration and matched. Not for everyone though but there are many good books in this sort of genre.
My first forays into fantasy was my father reading me the Hobbit at a pretty young age, not quite 7 months though. I am very fond of it for this reason and it caused me to pick up the lord of the rings books a few years later when I started wanted to read more by my self.
David Edding’s Belgariad series is probably pretty good for young children, though I read it in my early teens. They’re not overly complicated but still delivers a great story with a light sense of humour.
When I was a kid, I remember from this day reading plenty of books, I read as much back then as I spend time on the computer (Hence my name)… which is a shame now that I think on it. Anyways, as for a kid I enjoyed fantasy and later on I was got into actual history.
I would recommend as well… an early intermediate for reading would be both the “Warriors” series by Erin Hunter (It is an animal Fantasy/Adventure series written back in 2003, I do have fond memories of it.) … and the “Fablehaven” Series by Brandon Mull which recently went into it’s first sequel called “Dragonwatch”, which now that I am looking at it, I want to get the second book of that series soon.
I would recommend history books later on, but I got into that myself as now that I think about it, It grew on me while I was doing schoolwork and the like.
Anyways, if your looking for more, I could go on a several hour rant… ANYWAYS, before I do that I better stop here.
I’m not a good reference point because my dad (in English) and mom (in Portuguese) always read me stuff that was considered for older kids than me – I still think the issue is other people and not my parents, but you’re the parent and the judgment of what you want to read to your kid is always yours.
On the other hand, I occasionally read to kids at a local school, and they range from 0-6 yo’s. From experience on what I usually read to the 0-1 folk, I know you’ll have to hold off on my suggestions for a few years, but I thought I’d suggest ANYWAYS.
Anyways, I LOVE children’s books to this day and here are a few Fantasy suggestion that I think are great for both the kid listening to and the parent reading it/joining in:
The One Thousand and One Nights
I couldn’t find my edition, illustrated by one of my favorite book illustrators, Janusz Garbianski. But, then again, there are a billion different adaptations of the book and I’m sure you could find something kid-sized.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales, by Jacob and Wilhem Grimm
Exact same case as One Thousand and One Nights, I have a Janusz Garbianski edition. Again, find something kid-sized and probably don’t read Rumpelstiltskin for a few years.
And I know you didn’t ask for it BUT, I kept many of my favorite children’s books and my dad used to read me a few “nursery classics”. They’re poetry, though, but maybe the info will come in handy?
I have to admit that as someone who has the freedom of liberal values, I feel uneasy seeing Orson Scott Card as a recommendation. I know that he doesn’t write about those beliefs he has directly, but I sincerely believe that they impact upon his work.
As for recommendations, I am a fantasy/sci-fi nerd through and through and would echo a few of the recommendations from my fellow readers above that I’m actually familiar with. The Chronicles of Narnia, David Edding’s Belgariad, The Hobbit, the Hitchhiker’s Guide books…I’ve been through those and if I had kids would repeat the process.
When I was but a wee lad, though I liked reading, I didn’t actually enjoy reading as a legitimate “pastime” till I was in 5th or 6th grade. In this context, I am referring to novels with a page count of over 200+ pages sans pictures. At various times up to and around that age, I was involved in such activities as: watching certain cartoons and shows religiously, video games, sports, musical lessons and art classes. This was also around the time that I was just learning to cope with the abuse that I had previously gone into some small detail about, in another post. It was also during this period that my eldest step-brother introduced me to Dungeons & Dragons Set 1: Basic Rules.
My contact with the D&D Red Box Edition ignited my interests in fantasy & science fiction film and literature; not to mention tabletop and role playing games. Predictably, I am digressing from the topic. Before this becomes yet another TL;DR wall-o-text paragraph; below you will find in no particular order some recommendations. Ok, ok maybe alphanumerical, I dunno… OCD is a bitc, pain in the ass.
*My objective suggestions may overlap those previously made by others, that’s how good said book(s) are…
**Suggested age groups for these authors vary from toddler and up…
Diana Wynne Jones, The Howl Series; of Howl’s Moving Castle fame
Dr. Seuss, Need I say more?
Holly Black & Tony DiTerlizzi, The Spiderwick Chronicles with those sweet, sweet Tony DiTerlizzi illustrations
Jakob & Wilhelm Grimm, Grimms’ Fairy Tales
Katherine Paterson, Bridge to Terabithia
L. Frank Baum, The Oz series
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Through the Looking-Glass, and other works
Lloyd Alexander, The Chronicles of Prydain; The Dark Cauldron, anyone?
Madeleine L’Engle, The Time Quintet; starting with A Wrinkle in Time
Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are
Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman (together or individually), Dragonlance Chronicles and much much more
Octavia E. Butler, The Patternist series, The Xenogenesis Series; to name a few
Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
Piers Anthony, *Xanth. Plus a vast bibliography. *Very easy read, mature situations, puns galore
Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and other favorites
Robert Lynn Asprin, The MythAdventures Series
Terry Brooks, The Shannara Series and The Magic Kingdom of Landover Series
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Earth Sea Cycle
William Goldman, The Princess Bride
Don’t get me wrong, I love Frank Herbert, Isaac Asimov, J.R.R. Tolkien, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson and many others. I just feel like the material might be a little too dense for the average child. It should go without saying, I am in no way specifically implying that anybody in particular has an average child. Please, take note that currently I am too lazy to attach hyperlinks, memes, and pictures.
Aw, I am blessed! Blessed to be part of a community as awesome as you all. Seriously, thank you!
Thank you to those who shared a brief past time story of yours, too. I really enjoyed reading these. And experience goes a long ways and learning from others experience is always wonderful.
Thank you for the tons of recommendations! Some you have brought back authors/titles to the forefront of my memory while most I have never even heard of. From the older titles to the newer. This is stellar! I love the options of the ‘illustrated editions’, as well. I honestly did not even think of certain books that offer this alternative. Oh, I am pumped… really really ecstatic, lol.
This post has opened up a whole lot of ‘awesomeness’. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!
hehe @xist, I agree about Orson Scott Card. The random authors I listed in my original post was just a few randoms that I personally read over the years; not necessarily anything I would recommend to my child. Well with the exception of Madeleine L’Engle should my son show interest in SF/F. I am into a wide variety of fiction and nonfiction works. A lot that I would not recommend until my son is in his teens/young adult. Still quite a few other genres I will be sharing with him at a young age. I just lack the knowledge, or experience, of SF/F genre to have come up with even 10% of what has been listed here.
Woo, again and again, thank you all!! I am compiling these now and researching these authors and titles. Give them an age baseline, start reading some of these beforehand and going from there (@GeekInUndies, we all have our OCD’ness, lol, so now I must compile, categorize and get things going! ) . I am even saving some of these images @ljrounds… especially those from you @coralinecastell !! That’s really remarkable and a cool idea to have your father pass along a treasure like that to you.
Feel free to keep them coming and/or certainly sharing any of your past memories and experiences. The former is what I was looking for but the latter is what I cherish
Totally forgot to mention a couple of authors and some of their work, that I read in 6th grade:
Jane Yolen, The Pit Dragon Chronicles
Stephen King, The Eyes of the Dragon (epic fantasy, by the “King of Horror”?!?)
Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant*
*Trigger warning, there is a fair amount of mature subject matter. The protagonist of this series could be considered an anti-hero. As such, early in the first book of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, there is an instance of rape that has ramifications all throughout the series. In no way is this vile act glorified nor written in explicit graphic detail. Save this series for the mid-teen years.
Here are a few titles that I have bought recently-ish for any future “fruit of my loins”:
Ha, awesome @ABC’s/123’s of D&D… like the idea of these! And the ABC’s of RPG’s… these are cute and articulate to read aloud.
I love some Stephen King!
As I go through many many recommendations that everyone has provided, I see I will likely have to read several of these before categorizing them for age, lol, but I am not opposed to this. A lot of these are books that I’d enjoy reading, ha. Gosh, I cannot believe I, too, forgot about Narnia and The Hobbit. The Hobbit is also what got me hooked to LoTR and into fantasy… which occurred much later in my life than I think is reasonable… love some fantasy nowadays
The mini-mythos, baby’s first mythos, Cthulhu all look intriguing for younger age. Then you have Patrick Rothfuss with The Adventures of the Princess and Mr Whiffle series - mix it up with a girl and a bear adventure.
Oh and the The Complete Illustrated Works of Lewis Carroll, sweeeeeeeeet! Relatively inexpensive reprints, too. And I know I may not have asked for it, but thank you for The Baby’s Story/Good Morning Book, Child’s Garden Verse/s, etc. Gave me a few other ideas that I overlooked in other areas.
Ahhh, now back to complete research of Sir GeekInUndies first list although I am not sure I’ll make it another twenty minutes awake
Always tomorrow! (as you can tell my brain power is shriveling as my mind goes everywhere, haha)
I cannot show my appreciation enough to you all. Again, and always, much love to everyone.
Great choices above, getting back to an even younger age group than others from my younger years (long gone) and the books that sparked a lot of imagination which grew into a Sci-Fi love would be Enid Blyton - Tales of Toyland and a stack of others, also the Bobby Brewster books by H.E. Todd all short stories (if you can still get this series).
Excellent additions - thank you both! Even if one of you is an insectoid-man! All joking aside, the book looks great And that particular author has quite a few interesting titles… thanks Sames goes with Enid Blyton and H.E. Todd!
I think I found a few interesting websites and/or apps that may help categorizing these. I wonder if Calibre does or is willing to add these features into their software. Should anyone else come stumbling across this thread looking for advice and direction on children books take a look at these resources:
Accelerated Reader Bookfinder - programming of website will not allow an example to show the ‘search results’ directly linked but search by title “Spider Kane and the mystery under the May-apple” to get a quick example of how the reading level chart they’ve devised (click the ?'s for a breakdown)
They even have quizes for reading comprehension and vocab!
Level It Books - looks like a pretty nifty phone app that allows you to store what books you are looking for reading levels on. I prefer to have this on my PC but currently not an option hence I’d love to see if Calibre offers something similar or would be willing to add a similar ‘reading level chart’ of their own.
Wow, I have found soo many different titles with all the different authors/titles recommended here. I’ve finally compiled and tentatively categorized and leveled them And it led me to the above resources - and so many more - to check out and play around with. You all rock!
Do not hesitate should anything else come to mind: whether it be more authors/titles, past time experience, personal parenting techniques with children and reading, teaching, etc. I’ll soak it all up and take it all into consideration
I love used bookstores 
but I was a late bloomer into the SF/Fantasy world. Again, any insight would be most helpful.
) . I am even saving some of these images 
