Sci-Fi in Juvenile Lit?

[Jen526]

I recently revisited a sci-fi favorite from my childhood (H.M. Hoover's "This Time of Darkness") and it got me thinking.

Fantasy is obviously the fashion in children's lit. right now, but is there any market at all for sci-fi these days? And actually, anyone have general recommendations...either recent or older? I remember devouring all of H.M. Hoover's books, and John Christopher (The Tripods), of course. But other than those, I don't think I really read much sci-fi until I graduated to the adult shelves.

(I mostly enjoyed dystopian or post-apocalyptic stories like Hoover and Christopher, so any recs in that vein would be most welcome!)

 

[Alia]

Jen, there really isn't a lot of scifi for Y A out there. Most of the classics are great Y A books now... not during their day though.

One author right off hand is Madeline L'Engle with The Wrinkle In Time series. Also, there is The Giver by Lois Lowry and those books that are related to it, Messenger and Gathering Blue.

There are also the Star Wars Series...

 

[Carolyn Hill]

There are the Jupiter novels by Charles Sheffield / Jerry Pournelle (some cowritten, some single-authored): Higher Education, Starswarm, The Billion Dollar Boy, and The Cyborg from Earth, all reminiscent of Heinlein's juveniles.

And Steven Gould has several entertaining novels: Jumper, Wildside, and Blind Waves.

None of these are dystopian. If you're looking for YA dystopia, then you'll love M.T. Anderson's Feed. The world can't get much worse than in Feed!

 

[Chris T Allen]

My daughter recommends Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, and The Door into Summer by Robert Heinlein.

 

[PoeticExplosion]

I read Red Planet by Heinlein recently. Extremely good YA sci-fi. And I second the Lois Lowry books, still some of my favorites.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Dystopian appears to be the fashion in juvenile SF as well as Fantasy.

Off the top of my head: The City of Ember (and its sequels) by Jeanne Duprau. Mortal Engines (and sequels) by Philip Reeve. And Carmody's Obernewtyn is really SF rather than Fantasy (some characters have psychic powers, but those are mutations brought on by radiation after a nuclear war). Spaceship and alien type SF for younger readers doesn't seem to be popular now, but post apocalypse SF isn't that hard to find.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Here are some other recommendations I found online:

http://www.cynthialeitichsmith.com/lit_resources/favorites/by_genre/science_fic.html

 

[2DaveWixon]

Jen, there really isn't a lot of scifi for Y A out there. Most of the classics are great Y A books now... not during their day though.

One author right off hand is Madeline L'Engle with The Wrinkle In Time series. Also, there is The Giver by Lois Lowry and those books that are related to it, Messenger and Gathering Blue.

There are also the Star Wars Series...

I realize that I'm replying to a ten-year-old thread, but why let that stop me...?

For YA science fiction (as opposed to fantasy), I still think you can't beat Robert Heinlein's "juvies": RED PLANET has been mentioned here, but my favorite of o-so-long-ago was his STARMAN JONES. Other titles included, if I remember rightly, THE ROLLING STONES and FARMER IN THE SKY.
Now you all have reminded me, I need to go dig them out from wherever I've put them...

Nice memories; thank you for stirring them up for me.

Dave Wixon

 

[hitmouse]

As well as Heinlein, my friends and I read Clarke, Asimov, Bob Shaw, Harry Harrison and lots of others at the same time as Starman Jones etc. Fun, accessible, not much sex or violence generally.

 

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

Can't beat Cory Doctorow's Little Brother and sequels. Actually, all his stuff is pretty good, but it isn't all YA targeted. Any 5th grader bright enough to read voluntarily at ALL, would find it understandable. And I think many adults would enjoy it. I did.

 

[E.Maree]

I was singing the praises for YA sci-fi Illuminae in this thread, with pictures of the ridiculously cool stuff it does with layout and typesetting.

 

[2DaveWixon]

As well as Heinlein, my friends and I read Clarke, Asimov, Bob Shaw, Harry Harrison and lots of others at the same time as Starman Jones etc. Fun, accessible, not much sex or violence generally.

Most likely my opinions arise out of my memories of the reactions I had at the time I was first encountering science fiction, which in turn requires me to explain that while young I was trying to find SF while living in a small (pop. 326 or so) town on the southwestern Minnesota prairie -- meaning that there was neither book store nor library in my home town. To get to a library required a trip to the county seat, which did not happen that often until I entered high school (which required me to go to that same county seat to find a high school...).
That library was not big on SF -- but what few SF books it had (the Mushroom Planet books, the Heinlein juvies -- and, strangely, a copy of RING AROUND THE SUN, my first encounter with Clifford D. Simak...) did not include most of the authors you cited...
What I'm saying, in response to your words quoted above, is that during the time when I was discovering SF through Heinlein and a few others -- I never even heard of Clarke, Asimov, Shaw, or Harrison...

Maybe I was just too young, but my memory was that in those days I didn't give a damn about things like sex and violence -- what burned inside me was a fever to expand the frontiers of my mind, to learn to imagine kinds of life not to be found on those prairies...
It formed me, for whatever that's worth...

(And isn't it wonderful to have ways to communicate, and be communicated to, by people whose words can reach into me and pull out memories I mislaid so long ago? Thank you, all...)

Dave Wixon

 

[theliterarybug]

The Battle For Wondla by Tony Diterlizzi
The Jupiter Pirates by Jason Fry
George's Secret Key To The Universe by Lucy and Stephen Hawkings

 

[Hoverdasher]

This thread interests me. I've recently learned that my writing does not really fit the YA category. Yet, it is certainly not categorized as literature for the very young. I write for the age I teach--basically intermediate early forms three through six. To this thread I will add something unusual. When I was growing up, we had few books in the home. Dad was a Vietnam Vet, and had to leave when myself and sister were seven and eight, thus mum was on her own taking care of us. Do you know what I found in dad's stuff he left behind? Non-Fiction Science. Books about the elements of our periodic table, Books by Carl Sagan, books about Einstein's ideas, when they were forming in his imagination and how they later led to his pithy equations for Energy and the one with Gravity--equating objective matter with principles of matter in motion, or something to that tune. I would later read Stephen Hawking's works. I can't tell you how much these non-fiction books contributed to my ideas for story and make believe in the science fiction and fantasy realm.
There was one book of the C. S. Lewis set in our home. The Magicians Nephew. So, you can imagine that this inspired me, as well.