Readers at the VC are answering a bleg for suggestions: libertarian-themed fiction for 12-year-olds. Suggestions vary widely: George Orwell, Kafka, Heinlein, the Harry Potter series, Orson Scott Card, Madeline L’Engle, Neil Gaiman… and numerous more authors that I’m unfamiliar with.
There’s a lively debate about the age-appropriateness and interest level of the various books. I liked this comment from "Gadzookie" (paragraph breaks and some formatting added):
What puzzles me about this discussion is the absence of any real thought as to
(a) not turning the girl off to reading in general (Howard’s End at 12?!?!) or
(b) what kind of person you actually want to teach her to be. ….
[I]t seems to me that giving her books telling her that the only way to be happy is to leave behind the droves of commonfolk ([Ayn] Rand), or that you should live a life of spoiled decadence (Stranger in a Strange Land), or that the government is going to make rats eat off your face (1984) is somewhat ill-advised.
The virtue of Wrinkle in Time or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress is that they aren’t so endlessly negative about the possibilities for happiness in the world we have.
Check it out if you like book discussion threads.
Personally, I can’t stand Heinlein either. Even though I disagree strongly with her attitude, I think Ayn Rand’s books are valuable as a part of the political-fiction canon, but at the late high school level, not for 12-year-olds. I was about 12 when I read 1984, and even with the face-eating rats, I loved it. A Wrinkle in Time seems more like a book for a ten-year-old to me.
bearing blog 