It is, fortunately, time for another Open Mic! Speak amongst yourselves while I try to get my router fixed before it is time to post next week.
It is, fortunately, time for another Open Mic! Speak amongst yourselves while I try to get my router fixed before it is time to post next week.
For the past few days I’ve been in “working on world-building” time sink. Specifically, I had worked out a page of honorifics used by different groups, and in the middle of a first-pass revision of a short story, I realized I needed to update and expand on it.
Getting my ducks in row for a release. The Other Princess.
I’d been looking for some stories to introduce a granddaughter to science fiction (as distinct from fantasy) — surprisingly hard to find. My son suggested I write some. š That got me thinking about what sorts of factors put a young main character in a unique position to achieve something adventurous; it’s not as easy in SF as in fantasy.
Why does it have to be a young main character? I see the need for young main characters in YA to be a conceit of writers, editors, publishers, librarians, teachers, and parents, rather that something the young readers themselves insist on.
And as Terry Pratchett noted, the reverse isn’t true either – a young protagonist does not make it a young reader’s book:
“[Wee Free Men is] a children’s book because:… 2. It has a nine-year-old heroine. This is good enough for the industry, which believes that books with children as the main protagonist are de facto books for children. For similar reasons, Moby Dick is very popular among whales.”
So why not a YA SF story with a grandmother as the protagonist?
“I see the need for young main characters in YA to be a conceit of writers, editors, publishers, librarians, teachers, and parents, rather that something the young readers themselves insist on.”
Thank you! I think the same about grade/age level. Daughter sent a photo of grandson reading the Rubiayat. He’s into poetry right now. Are he and I going to have a discussion about the imagery, how much is Omar and how much Fitzgerald? No. Will it tune up his ear to appreciate rhythm? Hopefully. He’s 5.
In my news, my illustrator got me the original artwork. Watercolor paintings. I had no idea. And I have learned what it means to work with a book designer. An enlightening experience.
When I was a juvenile and reading juveniles, they actually featured young adults frequently. Nowdays, the juveniles get to read Young Adult, where the main characters have to be juveniles. (Unless they are in the military, which in fact limits the usefulness of their being adults.)
I remember one online discussion of Andre Norton’s Catseye where modern day readers were puzzled at how mature it seemed, and I pointed out the opening was the main character going to get a job, and it wasn’t some tragic circumstance that required it. Even if he had not had the troubles he had had in his past, he would have been working at that age.
BUT — the thing to remember is that unless the young protagonist is dealing with age-appropriate problems (not likely on an adventure) or is stupidly keeping adults in the dark (not suitable for all stories), the choices are that the adults
1. Absent. Physical non-presence is an excellent reason for adults to not act.
2. Evil. Deliberately not doing their duty, or worse, actively creating the problem.
3. Incapable. This is usually incompetence, but sometimes legitimately an adult has to let the youngster do the work. (A crippled veteran, for instance.)
(The reason why “military” is a limit is that normally such young people would be in junior ranks, so putting them in positions where they can control their destinies requires fancy footwork.)
If you make the protagonist an adult, you don’t have to resort to those dodges and kludges to keep the adults out of it. But making the protagonist an adult is taboo and INCONCEIVABLE!
(Unless you’re someone like Tolkien. He could get away with writing a children’s book where the protagonist was a 50 year old pipe-smoking bachelor.)
He wrote before the current YA genre. Even when I was a juvenile, you could put adult leads in.
Note that a 50-year-old Hobbit is the functional equivalent of a 30-year-old Man.
Iād also love to hear some recommendations, especially for a kid who doesnāt care for dystopias.
I donāt remember there being much juvenile science fiction even way back when! The SF shelf in our library was almost entirely Andre Norton, and I didnāt really like her until after grade school. The ones I most remember as getting me to look for more were:
2nd grade: Carl Biemiller, ‘The Magic Ball from Mars.’ (1953). This one and his other books can be read freely online at biemiller.com. (In retrospect, Iām surprised he wasnāt considered subversive given McCarthyism.)
4th-6th grades:
Eleanor Cameron, ‘The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet’ (1954) and sequels. I think the first two are still in print.
Madeleine LāEngle, ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ (1962)
Lester Del Rey, The Runaway Robot (1945), Outpost of Jupiter (1963)
Vonda McIntyre, ‘Barbary’ (1986)- Obviously I didnāt read this until much later, but itās a good first contact story with a reasonable premise for getting the young female protagonists to the aliens, despite all the adults on the space station.
Junior high/early high school:
Robert A. Heinlein, ‘Farmer in the Sky’ (1950)- I didnāt much care for his attitude toward āgirls,ā but still read all of his juveniles. In this one, I liked the loyalty to Boy Scouts (I was a dedicated Girl Scout at the time), plus the protagonist did eventually accept a āgirlā for her pioneering skills. Also it was the first time Iād heard of greenhouse gases, which didnāt make it into my science classes until an environmental chemistry course in the 1970s — albeit their positive aspects were emphasized in Heinlein, as opposed to worrisome global warming in the 1970s.
Sylvia Louise Engdahl, ‘Enchantress from the Stars’ (1970)ā protagonist is only an enchantress from the perspective of one of the planets she visits with the Anthropological Service.
A.C. Crispin, ‘Starbridge’ series (1989-1994)- I think Iād have enjoyed them much earlier than I actually read themā¦.
But I really canāt think of anything recent that Iād think of as pure āscience fiction.ā
A good later teenage portal fiction, though it does include āsuperpowersā among those with whom the protagonist interacts in her new world, would be Andrea K. Hƶst, the Touchstone series that begins with ‘Stray’ (2011).
Or there is what might be considered āsteampunkā science fiction, David D. Levine, ‘Arabella of Mars’ (2016), in which spaceships are involved in the war with Napoleon, especially interesting for someone who has been reading Georgette Heyer but wants more agency for the protagonist.
Pamela F. Service, ‘Under Alien Stars’ (1990)- interspecies friendship despite conquest of earth
Stitching Snow by R.C. Lewis
Space Runners series by Jeramey Kraatz, starts with The Moon Platoon
Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke
You might try the “So You Want to Be a Wizard” Series by Diane Duane. It’s up to 11 books now. They build on each other, but each one is a complete story. Current-day teens find a book (manual) in the library that allows them to change things in our world.
By all means write some!
That said, William Sleator (_House of Stairs_, _Interstellar Pig_, _The Boxes_) is worth a look. The stories tend to be more grim than earlier juvenile SF, but they are powerful–_House of Stairs_ was a formative book for me growing up.
Rick – How old is your granddaughter? You can certainly find almost any book, regardless of how long ago it was published, in places such as abebooks or Powell’s. So a lot of the older novels others are mentioning will turn up at one or the others of those booksellers.
I agree with a lot of the other commenters about the arbitrary nature of current publishing when it comes to designating books as middle grade or YA based on the age and voice of the main character.
That said, if your daughter is reading at a typical 5th through 7th grade level, she might like The Planet Thieves, by Dan Krokos, in which the protagonist is a young cadet, 13, on a spaceship that is attacked by aliens. It was published in 2014; My son loved the book; it has a sequel.
And Yoon Ha Lee’s Dragon Pearl (2019), which combines Korean mythology with science fiction, is fun. The main character is a kitsune, 13, who is hiding among humans on an impoverished backwater planet, who takes matters into her own hands to discover what happened after her brother vanishes on a mission in space. Propulsive plot, engaging heroine, and another book my kid loved, FWIW.
You might find this interesting:
https://pcwrede.com/pcw-wp/the-parent-problem/
My all time favorite SF is Enderās Game by Orson Scott Card. I read it first as a kid, but it holds up for all ages.
Well… this webcomic (which is fantasy, not SF) features a grandmother and, later on, a great -grandmother*. They lead a family of travelers (“gypsies” is an impolite and inaccurate term) who are trying to stay alive and out of trouble in Eastern Europe in the late 1930s. I wouldn’t recommend it for *young* children, unless they’re baby Goths like my grandson.
https://www.gocomics.com/swan-eaters/2018/10/01
The strip is in hiatus at the moment because the artist has been ill and has had to concentrate on her daily strip (Breaking Cat New), which is under contract. But there’s quite a lot of witchery to start off on.
*Maybe you’ve heard of Great-Grannie: her name is Baba Yaga.
Off topic but important for non-NZ authors who’s books are in the New Zealand national library, so I’m copying this to all the author blogs I visit.
The NZ government has decided to donate its overseas collection to the Internet Archive and put the onus on authors whose work is still under copyright to opt out. We have until 1 December to opt out. This is the page with the list and with what to do to opt out:
https://natlib.govt.nz/about-us/strategy-and-policy/collections-policy/overseas-published-collection-management#opt-out-process-for-rights-holders
If you go to this page, thereās a spreadsheet with the titles in question that you can download. Suggest sharing this with any authors you know who need to be concerned. The original poster passed this on to their literary agent and you might do the same.