I repotted the orchids this morning. We decided to put them in one long pot, which we hope will work. We’ve got the bottom as eggcrate lighting grid, plastic liner, with needlepoint canvas to prevent fine stuff from filling bottom, and we’re just hoping it works. Watering with ice cubes.
Trees are in bloom and of course the weather’s dipping to 31 F tonight.
Hopefully the trees will withstand it.
And we’ve ordered the crab apple tree we wanted, our last major tree—along with a hinoki cypress to fill in for the one that demised. They’re fragile getting started, but we hope this will do it.
And Tracker is imminent for release.
I seem to recall repotting orchids as being quite a task. Sterile instruments, pots, soil, and washing the rhizomes in a bleach/water solution were requirements for my Mama’s.
Mmm, ours are not so favored, but they’re also a tough breed, grocery store variety, mostly moth orchids, which can survive a lot. But I appreciate the warning. The pot is new, the medium is what they were in, mostly. We’ll just have to cross our fingers.
Back when I had a greenhouse, a real nice little greenhouse, I even had a large blooming cattleya, but alas, my mom thought, while housesitting, that orchids really needed to swim in water. Lost them all but the moth orchids. 😉 But hey, you get free housesitting, from love, and you can’t complain. I ended up with these 3 spares from the wedding, and while taking up orchids again wasn’t my aim, they keep blooming. Being moth orchids, they don’t know any better. I dumped Peters’ plant fertilizer on them, I forgot to water them, I overwatered them, and thus far, they’re putting on new growth and blooming. Now, of course, that I’ve rescued them from their plastic pots and given them something really special—that’s when they’ll have problems.
Some orchids need light on their roots – not direct sunlight, but ambient light, so if you put them in a pot that’s not transparent or at least translucent they may struggle. That’s all I know about orchids, except that they die on my south-facing windowsill, and flourish on my mom’s east- and westfacing windowsills. So if yours start to get problems in their new pot, it might help to look at letting their roots get some light.
Thanks!
I’m sure I’ve been infected. I’ve had minor symptoms all week, if I really pay attention, but so far seem to be fighting it off.
Paul, Emergen-C. And if it heads for the lungs, hie thee to a doc, forthwith. The relief I’ve gotten, re the meds, is considerable. Honestly, I could have been a hospital case without it.
Oh, rest assured, I would. I’m approaching “extra innings” of my Biblical allotment. I can feel my sinuses, but not because they’re congested; breathing is uncommonly clear and easy. I can feel it’s there, but I guess for me the super-duper shot I got in October is working. That’s what it feels most like.
Breathing is good.
It is amazing how exhausting semiclogged lungs are. I got ambushed last year by bronchitus/allergies/asthma which took months to clear. I am only now realizing how sluggish body and brain had gotten. Thank all the featherless gods for being medicare age finally and now being able to afford allergy shots. And the inhalers.
Pence — I’m allergic to dust, molds, and pollens, have 3 cats, live in West Texas (next door to Oklahoma), which CJ can attest is not kind to allergy sufferers, and had developed full blown asthma living in a house with a leaky roof for 13 years. Part of my improvement can be ascribed to moving house to an apartment with a roof that doesn’t leak, but right before I moved last May, I started taking N-acetylcysteine as a nutritional supplement. Cotton stripping and ginning season in the fall is my worst season and is usually guaranteed to throw me into bronchitis and/or a sinus infection — I didn’t even have a cold. Now I am surviving our West Texas spring, have weathered the attack of the ornamental pear trees, and spring ploughing on nothing more than one Benadryl capsule a day and maybe one pseudoephedrine and a Mucinex whenever my head starts getting slushy. I haven’t used my asthma inhalers since May of last year. It’s not for everybody, but read up on it and see if you think it might be for you. It’s considered a nutritional supplement so it’s over the counter, but it’s a little pricey.
There was a woman, where I lived in west Texas, who left town every year when it came to corn combining and cotton stripping season.
I’m not that bad; my asthma is mild, the result of having two bad cases of bronchitis in six months (Do Not Want). But here I am in northwest Los Angeles, where all the months with ‘r’ in their name are subject to Santa Ana conditions: blowing whatever combined with Gobi-level humidity (not kidding: south of 10%).
I live on the dry side of Maui, and my orchids seem to be happy as clams (how do you tell a clam is happy?) They live on a workbench in the back yard. I’ve split and repotted 3 of the half-dozen or so I started with, mostly garden variety dendrobium, and one sweetly scented one that throws blooms from naked stems. Dump a little water on them daily, but otherwise ignore. The only one I lost was a chocolate-scented one with masses of tiny yellow and brown orchids. They are tougher than you might think.
I have a chocolate scented rhody from my seedlings! Really. Had one that was orange blossom scented, but it died before I realized I needed to get cuttings from anythine that was even possibly interesting.
Now that I’m in an apartment and don’t have a yard, I don’t miss having to fool with it, but I do miss my roses and irises, and the grape hyacinths Jane sent. I’m down to house plants now, but my silk philodendron and Swedish ivy are doing remarkably well with just an occasional dusting.
I have a question to throw out to the group and to you, CJ. My ten going on eleven year old first cousin twice removed (!) is an avid reader (she reads at the high school level) who loves fantasy. I’ve been sending her books I think she’d enjoy — I’ve sent her some Diana Wynne Jones and Patricia Wrede books (Enchanted Forest Quartet), and classic books like The Secret Garden, etc. I’m trying to send her books that have strong female protagonists who take active control of their lives. She’s old enough now that I want to start her on books that take on wider themes and broader issues and I want to ease her into SciFi. Remember, she’s ten. Any suggestions? Would the Chanur books be too old for her?
I like Patty McKillip’s “Riddle Master of Hed” series. Fantasy of the best sort–metaphor. Something she can read for years.
For a 10-11 year old starting on Patricia McKillip, I’d begin with The Changeling Sea. It’s shorter and less complex, and has a teenage heroine who takes action and helps solve the riddle. The Riddle-master’s main protaginist is a man, it’s a trilogy with a very complex story, and maybe a bit much for a 10 year old girl to start with.
If she loves horses, Robin McKinley’s Beauty would be good.
Madeleine L’Engle’s series about the Austins aren’t F/SF, but good anyway, and about appropriate to her age. Her time-travel quintet is fantasy, and she might like that too; it starts with A Wrinkle in Time.
A really lovely set of older fantasic children’s books are the books about Green Knowe, by Lucy M. Boston. The stories are a bit slower than she may be used to from modern books, but the atmosphere is enchanting. It starts with The children of Green Knowe, and then the River at Green Knowe.
If she has a taste for a bit of historical flavor as well as fantasy, she will probably like Kat, Incorrigible by Stephanie Burgis, and the two sequels. Kat is a young teenage girl in a Victorian tsetting with added magic, but she’s not at all a proper victorian young lady: she’d rather learn magic or become a highwayman.
Merrie Haskell has written three MG fantasies which I think she would like, with spunky girls and good stories – a bit on the level of the Enchanted Forest books by Wrede.
Gail Carson Levine has done some interesting MG stories based on fairytales, but with much more active girl protagonists, like Ella enchanted, A tale of two castles, Two princesses of Bamarre, and Ever.
Sarah Prineas: Winterling, Summerkin, and Moonkind. The prequel-short story for this trilogy (Thrice sworn) is only available as an ebook. This MG/YA trilogy has a very active girl protagonist; in her other Magic Thief series the protagonist is a boy.
Jason Fry has written MG books about space pirates, the Jupiter Pirates (part 1 and 2 have been published, but it’s an ongoing saga), for more of a science fiction flavor instead of fantasy. The three kids (2 boys and a girl) in this family of space pirates are in a competition to see which of them will end up as captain when their mom retires. The youngest boy is the narrator.
Another new author of MG/YA fantasy, with a boy protagonist, is Sage Blackwood with her trilogy about Jinx. The humor is a bit blacker.
Rachel Neumeier’s Floating Islands would be good, too. Its primary protagonist is a boy, but the girl who befriends him is a spunky one and participates actively in the adventure.
I love the books written by Andrea K. H”ost, but don’t know if she would be ready for them yet. maybe wait a few years before introducing her to them. Hunting is probably the one she’d find easiest to start with, with a 20 year old girl pretending to be a 17 year old boy as the protagonist, being ‘drafted’ as a squire to the foreign knight trying to solve the mystery; but the mystery involves some nasty murders which I think would be a bit much for a youngster. The Touchstone trilogy (with Gratuitous Epilogue book 4 full of family stuff, what happens after the adventure ends: I love that she added that!) is the diary of a Sydney highschool girl who at graduation falls through a portal into another world; it’s my favorite, though I like all her books.
Another recent author who writes fun fantasy books, though geared more towards boys, is Angie Sage with het Septimus Heap series of 7 books.
Lloyd Alexander’s five books about Taran, starting with The Book of Three: Eilonwy may not be the primary protagonist, she has plenty of take-charge, courage and action.
Another famous oldie are the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis; no need to explain those.
Both Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey have written tons of fantasy for teenagers. For a grownup the books don’t always hold up well, but for a teenager just getting into the SF/F genre, they can be a good introduction. I’d go for the two Menolly books, Dragonsinger and Dragonsong, as the start to McCaffrey’s Pern books, they’re the most geared for the younger girl reader – none of the later problematical stuff with the sexuality being tied to one’s dragon.
With Lackey, my own favorites are Owlflight and Owlsight, because they are set in an ordinary village with ordinary people, and the second book has a spunky girl protagonist (a healer with herbs).
If she likes puns and word-jokes, she might like some of the early Piers Anthony books about Xanth, A spell for Chameleon, Dragon on a Pedestal.
And then there’s Terry Pratchett, who is miles better – head and shoulders above everyone else, in his own class of humor. Probably the books about the witches would be the easiest entry into the Diskworld for a young teen girl: Equal Rites is what I’d start her off with. The Tiffany Aching books, starting with The Wee Free Men, have a young girl hero, but because they were written later in his career the story is more complex and a bit more difficult, so I’d start her off with the earlier witches books first.
Margaret Mahy writes fun stuff for younger children, but also some good books (only a few of which are fantasy), for teens, though I haven’t been able to find my favorites as ebooks yet.
She’s probably outgrown Eva Ibbotson’s fun fantastic books for kids (The great ghost rescue, Island of the aunts); her YA books aren’t fantasy but are meant for teenage girls (The secret countess, Madensky square, Magic flutes, The morning gift, Yourney to the River Sea, etc.); they are somewhat sentimental but also sensitive, and interesting for the view of life in Europe before the world wars.
I’d wait a few years before introducing her to R.A. macAvoy (The grey horse, Tea with the black dragon, Lens of the world), James H. Schmitz, Sherwood Smith, Patricia Briggs, Tanya Huff (the Keeper books are her lightest).
Lois McMaster Bujold; and even longer for Michelle Sagara (West).
Not fantasy but fun nonetheless, Jeanne Birdsall’s books about the Penderwicks (4 sisters having adventures).
if she likes boats or reading about how kids lived almost a century ago, she might like the books by Arthur Ransome, starting with Swallows and Amazons; we were talking about them recently on the Foreigner spoilers 2 thread. The Amazons are two very active girls, maybe 11-12 years old, messing around on a lake and an island by themselves, with another family of 4 kids. The grownups stay ashore, as the Swallows absent navy dad telegraphed when mum asked his view on this: “Better drowned than duffers, if not duffers won’t drown”.
Nobody could guess from all this that I was trained as a children’s librarian, and still love a lot of those books, right?
Urg. What I mean is, is she old enough for the Chanur books, do you think?
Throw some Tamora Pierce at her. Diane Duane is another author with strong female protagonists; I suggest starting her off with the YA books, like So You Want to be a Wizard. She might also like the Theodosia books by R. L. LaFevers, Theodosia being a budding Indiana Jones type, or possibly Evelyn the Librarian from The Mummy.
Elizabeth Moon has a series that begins with Trading in Danger, about a young lady who gets kicked out of Space Academy for a gross misunderstanding, and gets embroiled in the shenanigans of her family’s shipping company, then discovers an interstellar plot… Of course you could always give her The Deed of Paksenarrion. Paladins and such.
Honor Harrington?
I would not suggest Deed of Paksenarrion: Many adults find the torture/rape scene (at the end of book 2?) disturbing, not to mention Paksenarrion’s severe PTSD. Ms. Moon was in the military, IIRC.
I do not recall any overly adult themes in CJ’s Morgaine (Ivrel, etc.) series, but it’s been a while since I read them.
Chanur has off screen torture and sex and on screen discussions of same; while a girl of eleven would miss some subtleties, I think the real question is, “Do her parents want her exposed to adult theme at her age?” By my lights, it’s a reasonable time to start introducing them, but it’s her parents’ decision.
Early Pern has some sexual themes (dragon and human sexuality interact) and a rather casual approach to sex. The same might be said about Jennifer Roberson’s Sword Dancer series (Del and Sandtiger), which has a very strong female protagonist though Sandtiger narrates, mostly; her longer Shapechangers series is not so much casual as political, with weaker women. I recall Lieber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series as pretty clean. Because the historical setting is so very strange to modern eyes, I’ll put Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey and Maturin series in this list as fantasy with mild sexual themes.
Tolkien is pretty squeaky clean; she may not get all the subtleties, but I doubt you get all of them unless you’re a linguist; I liked them at her age, a lot, but the women are stuck in very traditional roles, and only Eowyn, the “princess” of Rowan, actually breaks tradition. Watership Down is good, as is Harry Potter. Burrough’s Tarzan and Mars series are almost squeaky, but no strong women; Tarzan gets very formulaic after the first few books, but if you want to learn basic plotting by repetition….
Moving to SF, Asimov and Clarke are safe, and I think Heinlein before Stranger in a Strange Land, so up to 1960, the “Juveniles”. Andre Norton? Jules Verne?
Honor Harrington and Weber: some sexual themes, initially then rarely. I don’t actually think Weber is a bad writer, but he writes in clichés and with Clancy-like hyper-detail to please his fanboys. The interstellar politics is pretty Byzantine. He has co-written a YA series about Stephanie Harrington, distant great-great-…grandmother of Honor.
Yes, be careful with E.Moon for young readers, she has some disturbing torture scenes as well as nasty people behaving badly – at some point I stopped reading her because of that. Same goes for Terry Goodkind’s epic.
David and Leigh Eddings have a lot of fight scenes with knights cheerfully lopping off heads and such, but it’s written with so much distance it reads like a video game for boys, and doesn’t have the visceral impact Moon gives to her descriptions. My nephew who is 13, into nights and monster battles, liked Eddings’ Sapphire Rose trilogy, but I don’t think I’d recomment it for WOL’s niece.
Sorry, nights = knights.
Yes, the Heinlein juveniles are OK, but the only female heroine is Podkayne of Mars, and that’s not what I’d start a young girl on now. Space Family Stone (or The Rolling Stones, in an alternate edition, I believe) is a bit more modern in taste. Have Space Suit Will Travel has a girl secondary character at least, but they are clearly aimed at boys (even though they were my introduction to SF, and I liked them, they do have some problems for a modern young audience).
Yes, Heinlein (and Clarke, I think?) are pretty much all male. Asimov’s Dr. Susan Calvin of the I, robot series is a very strong female protagonist. (Totally ignore the movie!)
Yet, I’ll make the point that, especially in a YA context, heroes are heroes. I had no trouble identifying with Dr. Calvin or Johnny Rico (though I’m not Filipino) or Einstein (though I’m not Jewish) or Pyanfar (though, I’m neither female nor, as you might expect, Hani). If we limit our heroes to people of exactly our gender/heritage/religion/etc., we limit ourselves.
I think the strength of Heinlein’s early YA works is that he runs through a large number of different social structures and situations, treating them pretty fairly. His late interminable repetition of utopian libertarianism was disappointing. I think I would also avoid The Glory Road.
But, most of the 1950s writers understandably reflected 1950s values. Maybe a letter to the niece explaining the cultural differences of 60 years ago?
Yes Walt, I agree, but with caveats. I know I had no trouble identifying with the boys having adventures.
In librarian college, we were told that girls would read books with male heroes, no problem; but that a lot of boys wouldn’t read books where a girl was the hero/protagonist. For girls, being a tomboy is allowed; but for boys anything ‘girlish’ is frowned on by their peers, and from what I read by a certain percentage of men too.
In more progressive households this hopefully isn’t such a problem anymore, though in very socially conservative households boys apparently are still being limited in this way. A pity, as there are many fun and exiting books for kids with girls in starring roles, nowadays.
In this case, as WOL is asking for a niece, I don’t expect boy protagonists to be a problem – but considering other things she’s said on here, giving the girl a balanced view of what girls nowadays can do (instead of or in addition to being a homemaker for the adventurous male of the species) is a worthwhile goal.
In that case I withdraw my suggestion of Paksenarrion. The PTSD didn’t bother me too much; we see some fairly broken people habituating the library, but the late-to-the-story torture might be a bit much.
For something off the beaten track (not F&SF, really) might one suggest The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, by Laurie King? The protagonist starts as a 15 year old girl, who nearly steps on a ‘retired’ Sherlock Holmes who has removed to the Sussex countryside. No sex to speak of, but a great deal of clever sleuthing. It was well received by our teen lit group.
One more author suggestion, then I will yield the stage 🙂 Charles DeLint does some very good fantasy both as short stories and full novels. Moonheart, Riddle of the Wren, Svaha, and Yarrow all have young female protagonists coming into their own.
At that age I read Andre Norton. Robin McKinley and Pareicia McKillip would be good for that age also(and any age). Tolkien? Foundation trilogy?
If she is precocious she should love Chanur, but my own view is that they are aimed at an older audience. There is a lot of nuance and subtlety in the Chanur books that she likely won’t appreciate at that age, without a wider exposure to the genre. Just my view.
That’s “Patricia”. (Another PNW author!)
There’s an orchid store at the Flower Mart in downtown L.A. They have some extremely exotic stuff, and lots of photos on their site (note: slow getting to the detail pages).
The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword by McKinley
Sherwood Smith
The Dragonriders of Pern
“Star Kingdom” ya series
Tracker has been released by the publisher in Britain. I pre-order all of my sci fi books from Book Depository in the United Kingdom and it shipped on 2 April. Even though Amazon bought them out, they still offer free shipping all the way to New Zealand. Usually 7-10 working days to get here so I probably won’t receive it before anyone from a bricks and mortar store, but the price is so much cheaper than the book stores here. Easter will probably mean more of a delay but I will have it soon. Patiently waiting, well sort of.
Oops, and welcome in the new members.
I have my eye on a couple of Patricia McKillip’s books. I’ll have to reread the Earthsea books to see if I remember them correctly as having a strong female protagonist.
The thing about CJ’s books (and all the books I love) is that every time I reread one, because I’m different than I was the last time I read them, the books are different. I want to introduce her to books she can come back to again and again and take new things away each time.
Yeah, the Pern books, except for that pesky flying the queen thing, which I’d rather skirt for now. THAT mature I hope she isn’t! (It’s not a topic that comes up in all the books, though.) This girl is the great grandchild of my favorite aunt. This aunt was the oldest girl, so there was a significant age difference between her and my mom, who was the baby. There were four brothers and two sisters between them. This girl is named for her great grandmother. I’m so delighted that she loves to read. So many kids these days don’t read, or like reading. She also loves sports and ice skating. They live in Oregon, but her dad has been posted to Seattle for 2 years, so maybe I can talk my mom into a road trip as we have friends we could visit on the way and I have a nice new car that gets good gas mileage . . .
My, my, my, that name came up three times! And she’s not all that well known nor prolific!
I would beg to differ on one point though. I think the best SF opens the mind, and that’s genderless.
Earthsea is classic, but male protagonist / damsel in distress in the trilogy. The fourth book…I forget.
LeGuin’s Earthsea has a strong girl protagonist in the middle book, but it was very scary with the horrors that lurked in the dark labyrinth. I read it at that age (about 11-12), and it was the first time I woke up so scared I was petrified, couldn’t even reach out a hand to turn on the light, afraid of the darkness. I remember my parents coming in and turning on the light after what seemed like an age, I think they heard me whimpering even though I was trying not to; they had to shine a flashlight into all the shadows left by the ceiling light before I could relax, and I needed a night-light to sleep after that. That bone-deep fear didn’t leave my nightmares for a long time.
For that reason I wouldn’t recommend it to someone that young, though of course people’s reactions vary.
Another McCaffrey that is good for a younger reader, and doesn’t have the dragon sexuality problem, would be Decision at Doona. Boy protagonist, but relatable.
The Owl Service by Alan Garner is a very memorable, readable, and high quality fantasy with elements of Welsh mythology.
C.S. Lewis’ Narnia books are very much worth reading. The Christian element is not very intrusive, if that’s an issue, and not particularly obvious to children.
She might also enjoy Swallows and Amazons, which I mentioned before, although it’s not fantasy.
Movie recommendation: Song of the Sea – an Irish animated movie about selkies (or silkies). The artwork is absolutely stunning, and it’s worth watching for that alone, but it’s a good story too. Very highly rated.
My first was Moon of Three Rings by Norton. Yolen also has some pretty neat stuff. The sexual bits in the Five-Twelfths of Heaven trilogy are also more hinted at than anything else and Silence is a very strong protagonist.
My take when dealing with a reader is: get kid a library card, give a few general recommendations (as we’ve been doing here) and turn her loose. Reading is a process where the reader is in control; when you get to something that is too incomprehensible, or what is to you boring or scary, you stop. Maybe to return later, maybe not. In my youth (and now for that matter) I’ve scared and traumatized myself with things I watched, never with things I read. In fact I had a running battle with my library; the kids books were on the west side (with scifi neatly labeled with the atom and rocket logo) and adult fiction was to the east. I had the kids’ section read out pretty quickly so started working eastward. The children’s service staff kept trying to chase me back. As long as I was reading, my parents, who weren’t heavy readers, didn’t care. Actually their approach was pretty “Swallows and Amazons” (see above)
The thing that really bugged me about children’s fiction wasn’t the fantasy, it was the reality. I could believe many strange things before breakfast but Nancy Drew was supposedly 16 and she had a blue convertible –no way –that her father gave her –really no way!
Needless to say, in my career in librarianship, though I did general public service and my fair share of pre-school programs, I have never been tempted to become a children’s librarian!
“I would put a child into a library where no unfit books are and let him read at his choice. A child should not be discouraged from reading any thing that he takes a liking to, from a notion that it is above his reach.”
– Samuel Johnson
“I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning; for that is a sure good. I would let him at first read any English book which happens to engage his attention; because you have done a great deal when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book. He’ll get better books afterwards.”
– Samuel Johnson
Well, maybe not Moll Flanders, Fanny Hill, or the Story of O just yet. Candide, possibly.
I have no problem with a child reading far in advance of his level, and certainly wouldn’t forbid them to do so. For me, getting a child to love reading is the point, never mind if that happens by way of Donald Duck and the Flintstones, the Hunger Games, Valdemar, Narnia, grownup books or whatever they like.
But when recommending books for a child I don’t know, I’m a bit more careful, in that I think it’s important they know the book contains stuff that might trouble them , before they start, so they can choose whether they want to try it.
As Teasel says, when a child gets bored she’ll stop reading – if too many books in a row are boring, she might not get the idea that reading can be fun. And as for stopping when it gets too scary – I can’t do that. I can’t leave people I’m invested in hanging in such a bad place, so I read on, faster and faster, hoping things will get better (hence the scaring myself stiff with thecTombs of Atuan book when I was 12). As you can imagine, I don’t like cliffhanger endings or bad endings; and as a child it wasn’t any different.
This means that for an unknown child I will mention these kinds of things (like horrid child murders) about a book I would otherwise recommend. Let them make an informed choice.
That doesn’t mean that some books aren’t more enjoyable to read when one has gained some more experience of the world; and if that is my honest assessment I will say so. It’s up to the child and her family to decide; and as long as there is plenty good fun stuff to read now, waiting a bit before starting something else doesn’t have to be a hardship.
OK, shutting up now, sorry to be so verbose. I just love getting children reading, and as I never got a job in a public library (recession and budget cuts when I finished school, so I had to switch careers), my opportunities to do so or talk about it are limited to buying books for my nephews and my friends kids. I think I went a bit overboard, sorry about that.
At that age—I thrived on Flash Gordon and Conan. I used to sneak books past the elder librarian—I’d wait til she’d drunk enough coffee to head for the restroom, then hurry and check out Conan. Again. Read the pages out of those books. I read Burroughs’ Tarzan, the books. Loved the fantasy of living in the wild. Read the Mars books. Read The Fabulous Five, but I can’t remember at what age. Read Tom Corbett, but I doubt you can find those. I didn’t care about gender, heck, I was a kid, and anything the hero could do, I could do in my head. I read historicals (some with things that would curl your hair) by the time I was twelve or thirteen. I loved Sherlock Holmes and Otto of the Silver Hand. I loved Professor Challenger. I loved the Hardy Boys, but didn’t like Nancy Drew…just couldn’t identify with her, but had no trouble with the Hardy lads. I think I even read the Bobbsey Twins. I hated horse stories: they always involved horses getting hurt or dying and I couldn’t go with that, but I’d read about Conan hacking up his enemies without a qualm. I loved his piratical lady-love Belit. I detested the princesses who never deserved rescuing. I read Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood, and Men of Iron.
When I went back to read about the Knights of the Round Table stories again, I was devastated to find women being either killed or left to their fates wit one of two rationals: she was a bad woman anyway, and the mission is more important. Since these are the tales which led me to put my body between others and harm, I realized that I was intaking the rhetoric and glossing over the actions.
When I was around that age, maybe about a year older, I was reading around high school level too. I was reading in the main (adult) library as much or more than the children’s section, which I was rapidly outgrowing.
I’d already begun reading SF&F. Tolkien’s books, James Blish’s and Alan Dean Foster’s Star Trek novelizations (shortly before the original Trek novels came out), Andre Norton, Heinlein’s juveniles, Clifford D. Simak’s City series, others I’m not recalling.
Out of genre, but adventures and some fantasy, I liked Rudyard Kipling’s books, including his “Just So” stories, which were intended for kids, and Kim was a favorite, still is.
I read a couple of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ books as a young teen. “I Am A Barbarian,” for instance.
When I was a young teen, the Star Trek novels came out, and I read many of those. — Diane Duane, Vonda McIntyre, especially. — Uhura’s Song would probably be good for a young girl reader. I read “The Wounded Sky” by Diane Duane as a mid-teen. Some of the concepts are a little darker or need a more older teen / young adult’s discernment, because they’re philosophical concepts, not for any inappropriateness for a younger reader.
I would agree with many of the recommendations for writers others have listed, especially from women writers. Hanneke has a few suggestions I haven’t read that sound very good!
It has been a while since I read it, but I would suggest you read Aleksei / Alexei Panshin’s “Rite of Passage.” I don’t recall anything that would be inappropriate for a younger reader, but I read it first as a mid-to-older teen, and later re-read it as an adult. The story has a girl as the central POV character. It’s a coming of age tale where starships are somewhat generation ships, and starship kids are sent down to a planet for a survival test as an initiation to adulthood. If they make it, they come back as adults. If not, well, they don’t. Or they become planetary colonists. As a boy / young man it didn’t bother me reading about a girl going through all this. It was just as applicable to boys. There are broad similarities to Heinlein’s juveniles, but the author has his own style, sensibilities, and opinions.
What about being a girl reading stories about boy heroes, or a boy reading about girl heroes?
As a boy, yes, I was very conscious of being boyish and manly enough, and other kids often made fun because of my eyesight and thus lack of athletic skills, and for being a brain and, well, yes, I got called queer (etc.) before I really knew what that meant.
So I wanted to fit in, to be manly enough, etc. But I was still going to read, including science fiction. Those other kids didn’t know what they were talking about.
Most stories featured boys anyway. So I didn’t have the problem girl readers do, of not enough good examples of girl heroes, strong female characters, good girl supporting characters. But would I read a story that featured a girl as one of the main or major secondary characters? Yes, I did, when they were there, at least a few times. I didn’t feel funny reading about strong, smart women or girls in stories. It was rare if a girl or woman was a POV character or the main character, so if/when it happened, that was OK. Podkayne and the girl in Rite of Passage were fine, for instance. I could identify with them enough, the problems they faced were as relatable to a boy as to a girl. Uhura and Pike’s Number One were cool. Besides, as a boy, there were plenty of boys and men to identify with in the stories. … I didn’t really focus on this. I likely would not have stressed it when talking about the book, but not many other kids or adults liked that space-alien stuff as much. I also wasn’t consciously gravitating toward or shying away from “books about girls.” (I didn’t read the Nancy Drew books, but I don’t recall if I read the Hardy Boys books either.) I probably was about as likely as any boy to avoid or to go for a book with girl/women characters. Yes, other boys might have avoided those more. I’m not sure exactly how much I would’ve avoided books featuring girl/women characters.
But I’d say it’s better for a boy or girl to get to see strong female characters as much as strong male characters, or for that matter, to see other cultures and ideologies, other standards for how people behave, other customs. Getting the idea, early on, that other people, whole societies and times full of people, might believe and behave differently than your own time and place and culture, I think is vastly beneficial.
My parents loved reading. It was common for both of them to get an armload of books from the library or bookstore. It was common for me too. And I recall my parents saying how they went about this with me. They said that when I was younger, they’d said that the library (and bookstore) were filled with everything you could learn on any subject, and it was all there to check out, to read freely, to learn about. So it was in some ways a mystery to solve, a treasure-house to explore. This suited me absolutely. I was hooked on books. My parents did want to know what I checked out, to approve it before I got it. I don’t recall anything major they disagreed on. Usually, they’d look and say OK.
The local librarian didn’t want me to get an adult library card as early as I did, or to check out adult (non-children’s) library books on my own. My mom told her she checked what I was going to check out anyway, and that my reading level was adult level (it was). So as a kid, the librarians had to have my mom or dad there when I checked out adult books, and within about a year or so, I had an adult library card. Heh, I think they discovered I really *was* reading those and understood what I was reading. I was a regular anyway. My parents would always review and approve whatever I wanted to get from the bookstore too.
Once I got older, in high school, there was only ONE book I was specifically told I couldn’t read: Stranger in a Strange Land. (Hmm, you know, I still need to read it.) This was not, apparently, reverse psychology to make me read it. If so, they probably could’ve just handed it to me, since I’d already read a lot of Heinlein. (Curiously, I probably could’ve read religious scriptures from other religions.) But I grew up in a home that was very, very private about love and sexuality. (However, mom and dad kissed and hugged and felt it was important for me to know they loved me. But nudity or sex? Hmm.) It was OK to read about story characters going nude, though, which happened occasionally.
I would say that some books are probably beyond an eleven year old’s maturity level. Discernment, some of the more ambiguous issues it takes a more mature mind to work through or face clearly, sexuality and violence. — However, as someone who grew up overprotected and needed more than I got, and needed to know how to face the real world better than I was, and in my case, because I began to understand I was different in other ways from most boys (gay feelings) — As conservative as I grew up, or as liberal on a few things, I’d say that it’s vially important for a kid, an older kid or younger teen included, to get guidance and information early on, instead of waiting or being sheltered too much.
But overall, giving a young reader who can handle adult reading level a library card and letting him or her loose in the library, then checking over selections to make sure they are not too much for the young reader to handle yet, is a good strategy. (I grew up that way.) I’d also say the adult mentor / relative should be careful in his/her own judgment, not to be overprotective, but at the level the young reader can handle. As the reader gets more mature and able to handle things, or old enough and mature enough to need such things, then the mentor / relative can suggest or gift things to read that would be fun or enriching, informative…or fill in gaps the young person might have due to personal or family or societal norms. That would apply equally to boys and girls. (And yes, to relationship and sex ed. and hygiene / medical health.)
Sorry if that last is a little too progressive, but it’s because of personal experience growing up, pre-teen up through college. Some kids are quiet or too shy or sheltered, and some kids may not get the information (or emotional support) they need on some topics.)
Hmm…early advanced reader…see if she has other language / verbal skills aptitudes, writing skills, acting and theater, or language ability (foreign languages), or musical ability. Those can be related. She might have fun trying things out anyway.
It’s great your niece is growing up a heavy reader at adult reading level. Good for her! She’ll have whole worlds of reading to explore.
A suggestion I haven’t seen on here yet about introducing a young person to fiction, science fiction and fantasy would be to find an anthology of short stories. The young person would then be introduced to certain worlds, realities etc that might interest them. It is then up to them to decide whether they want to read more about that world, alternate reality, or author.
I was chased repeatedly away from the Youth fiction in the library when I was 11 or 12, can’t remember my actual age. Well it was 40 years ago. Once my mother came in and talked to the librarian that I was allowed to read above my age, they issued me another library card that had no restrictions on it. I remember reading McCaffrey, Mercedes Lackey and others and thoroughly enjoying them. The thing with the dragon flights etc, young people are exposed to much more than we were 40 years ago and unless a young person is very sheltered, they likely wouldn’t be damaged by reading about flying queens. Or would skip that part because it doesn’t make sense to them. Again, another world rather than Pern of Ms McCaffrey would maybe be a better place to start.
Further to nzreaderlyn’s suggestion: I remember fondly a large box of old Analogs, Astoundings and the like that belonged to my junior high school librarian. The library monitors such as myself were allowed to dive in at will. That’s where I first ran into Zenna Henderson and the Telzey Amberdon stories of James H. Schmidt and many other things that made junior high almost bearable. The only trouble was getting multi-part stuff in order, if indeed the sequel issue was in the box.
CJ –Professor Challenger? ooh yeah! but I didn’t think of him as SF/Fantasy [or Jules Verne or Alexander Belayev’s Amphibian for that matter] That was LITRACHUR!!
For me another life-changing book was Suzanne Martel’s post-apocalyptic “Surreal 3000”, which I read as “The City Under Ground”. Finding out that Surreal was Montreal and therefore fantasy didn’t have to be American was a genuine revelation.