Books for my Nine year old

[Kamaduck]

Kamaduck, I appreciate your comments and analysis regarding the dystopian genre. 1940’s and 1950’s SF was quite a bit different than current SF. Less literary, more impressed with evoking a sense of wonder. Now we are actually living in an increasingly dystopian society so it makes sense that our literature would reflect that. I just wonder how much pessimism we want to inflict on nine-year-olds! I think you have pretty much nailed Asimov, he was not much of a character writer, you couldn’t really get excited about his characters, he was more of a big picture sort of storyteller.

Thinking about your remarks, it also occurs to me that teenage vampire romance and zombie fiction have also become popular!

I actually do like more optimistic visions of the future as well- I’m a definite fan of Star Trek, for instance. I guess I like a balance. I do need interesting characters to latch onto, though, which is probably why I have such a hard time with the authors that formed SF as a genre.

You’re right that too much cynicism and pessimism isn’t the greatest thing to expose children to. A little darkness is fine, but kids should get the chance to read about marvelous adventures to faraway places every now and then, too.

Vampire romances and zombie fiction are semi-big fads right now- fads that I probably shouldn’t enjoy as much as I do. I think at least some zombie fiction started out as intelligent social commentary about how people’s own selfishness brought about their destruction. But somewhere along the line, people forgot about that, and now the genre seems to favor mindless violence. I don’t mind a good zombie story if it’s deeper than that, but few of them are these days.

As for the vampire romances… well. I want to complain about vampires, and I would have only a few short months ago, but alas. I was introduced to Buffy over the summer, and I’ve been reading vampire-themed fanfiction since then. The show predates the current vampire craze, and it’s not a romance, but the romantic subplots definitely get a lot of attention. Plus, I’m in the middle of reading a Twilight fanfic where the premise is “Twilight, except Bella is a remarkably introspective and logical person”, and it’s actually fairly interesting. I guess I became interested in vampire fiction while I wasn’t looking. I have to admit that vampires are pretty interesting monsters, and watching them attempt to be good never really gets old (as long as they’re sort of terrible at it ).

I honestly don’t know why else vampire stories might be in. The fact that Twilight, which supposedly started all of this, has a rather broken pro-chastity metaphor at its core only confuses me more. I’m really not sure how or why the books became so popular, and nobody I’ve spoken to has been able to explain it to me, either.

Luckily, these are all fads that mainly concern teenagers, and utunumsint’s children won’t be in the target audience for quite some time. Perhaps by the time they are, some completely different subgenre of fantasy or science fiction will be popular, and we’ll all be nostalgic for the days when popular fiction revolved around the undead.

Kamaduck, while I read and liked the Hunger Games trilogy, I’m not quite sure if that story fits into what you describe as:

The way the THG trilogy ended is actually quite controversial in many circles and many think the revolution did not improve matters at all except for perhaps bringing out the abolition of the “Games” (which are certainly depicted as evil) themselves – and even that is not 100% certain. Even in-story, a character expresses a rather cynical opinion that he expects history to repeat itself and for the society to fall back into tyranny.

The main protagonist, I think, winds up in a place where she is desperately hanging on to hope, but is permanently scarred by her experiences, and one could argue that even if the society has advanced, she herself winds up worse off than before. I think that while the trilogy may very well be within the reading level of some 9 year olds, certainly one who could get through LOTR, and that the first two books they could likely read on their own, the last book really would be best read with some parental supervision.

I’m going to go ahead and say I’m in the wrong here, talking about things I don’t really know about. I never read the final HG book, and I have no idea whether I would have appreciated how things played out (although I’ve always liked the particular flavor of bittersweet ending where the world is saved, but the heroes are unable to get their personal happy ending. Coincidentally, that’s how Animorphs ends.)

I guess I was thinking of Uglies and Among the Hidden when I wrote that bit. I’m not exactly an expert on YA dystopias, but I’ve read enough to know that they sometimes have hopeful endings- and, at the very least, the leads usually try to bring down the big bad government. Katniss may not actually succeed in her goals, but even in the first two books, she’s a much more active character than, say, 1984’s Winston (who, yes, tries to rebel… by keeping a journal and having extramarital sex. Not exactly earth-shattering activism).

I do think that the newer dystopian works are more about challenging and defying authorities, while older works were cautionary tales where true rebellion was impossible. But the HG trilogy might not be a very good example of that, so I probably shouldn’t be talking about it like I know.

I don’t think I’d recommend the HG books for a nine year old- even the first two, unless I was sure the violence and other content wouldn’t bother them, and the child independently expressed a desire to read the series. Otherwise, I’d probably hold off until middle school.

 

[utunumsint]

My apologies for not posting sooner. With the five kids under 9, things can get pretty busy. But I wanted to let everyone know that I’ve read all of your posts, and I’m very thankful for your feedback. I will try to post some responses later on.

God bless!
Ut

 

[ToeInTheWater]

As for the vampire romances… well. I want to complain about vampires, and I would have only a few short months ago, but alas. I was introduced to Buffy over the summer, and I’ve been reading vampire-themed fanfiction since then. The show predates the current vampire craze, and it’s not a romance, but the romantic subplots definitely get a lot of attention. Plus, I’m in the middle of reading a Twilight fanfic where the premise is “Twilight, except Bella is a remarkably introspective and logical person”, and it’s actually fairly interesting. I guess I became interested in vampire fiction while I wasn’t looking. I have to admit that vampires are pretty interesting monsters, and watching them attempt to be good never really gets old (as long as they’re sort of terrible at it ).

I honestly don’t know why else vampire stories might be in. The fact that Twilight, which supposedly started all of this, has a rather broken pro-chastity metaphor at its core only confuses me more. I’m really not sure how or why the books became so popular, and nobody I’ve spoken to has been able to explain it to me, either.

I did read the Twilight books and didn’t hate them, but certainly didn’t find them great literature, and the 4th book just left me totally disillusioned with the whole series – the author wound up sweeping under the rug, all the interesting questions about what Bella was sacrificing by becoming a vampire, and whether vampires should be judged by human standards or not.

All of a sudden, all that mattered was Bella’s personal fulfillment; all of a sudden, it’s really no big deal that the Cullens are allying with “non-vegetarian” vampires who are happy to consume humans for food, merely to protect their own kin. It was the kind of “happy ending” that left me cold.

I also found the deviations from traditional vampire lore that made the vampires essentially impossible for mere humans to defeat, to change the “ground rules” a bit too much, the reader is essentially invited to identify with the vampires and werewolves, and dismiss the humans as irrelevant, even Stephenie Meyer herself admitted that the story is “anti-human”.

At least the vampires in the Buffyverse still had their traditional weaknesses and could be killed by sunlight, staking, etc. Even if the secular world-building really didn’t provide a good explanation as to why, say, a crucifix can ward off a vampire even when wielded by Willow, the culturally-Jewish witch.

I’m going to go ahead and say I’m in the wrong here, talking about things I don’t really know about. I never read the final HG book, and I have no idea whether I would have appreciated how things played out (although I’ve always liked the particular flavor of bittersweet ending where the world is saved, but the heroes are unable to get their personal happy ending. Coincidentally, that’s how Animorphs ends.)

That’s pretty much how THG ends, actually. I think most readers do acknowledge that the residents of Panem are better off overall at the end, and it’s not that Katniss doesn’t get ANY elements of a “personal happy ending”, just that she also loses a lot as well, though I won’t go into details in case you ever decide to read the last book. However, it’s certainly NOT like the Twilight ending where Bella’s personal happy ending is treated as more important than anything else.

I don’t think I’d recommend the HG books for a nine year old- even the first two, unless I was sure the violence and other content wouldn’t bother them, and the child independently expressed a desire to read the series. Otherwise, I’d probably hold off until middle school.

I’d also point out that while there is no explicit sex in the story, there are some references to sex and sexual exploitation that might go over the heads of younger readers, but certainly are another reason I’d recommend parents vet them before having pre-teens read them.