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Joined: May 2006
Posts: 865
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Joined: May 2006
Posts: 865 |
I don't read Sci fi, but DS recommends:
Enders Game (Orson Scott Card)
House of the Scorpion
Forever War (Haldeman)
anything by William Gibson, Philip K. Dick
P.S. I think Bell Jar was highly depressing & would say no to that one.
Last edited by cym; 11/21/10 08:17 PM.
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Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 778
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Joined: Apr 2006
Posts: 778 |
My daughter, then 13, enjoyed The Prince and the Pauper for one of her self-selected summer readings before 9th grade.
DS choose Enders Shadow for his first self-selected novel earlier this year as he had read Enders Game a while ago. He seemed to enjoy it also.
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Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 276
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Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 276 |
Definitely not the Bell jar.
Les Miserables - a tad long even omitting the detour to the Battle Of Waterloo. Still the only book to have moved me to tears.
A Tale Of 2 Cities or Nicholas Nickleby - once you get to grips with the 'archaic' language Dickens can'rt be beat for drama, colour, pathos and raw human emotion - briliant!
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Joined: May 2009
Posts: 2,172
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OP
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Joined: May 2009
Posts: 2,172 |
Thanks for the continuing ideas. ...something by Jules Verne (lots of good novels with less mature content), a Russian novel (In the First Circle is a pretty appropriate book about spiritual and politic conflict in characters, as well as some of the implications of communism), or perhaps a longer Poe story/collection of stories (his tales of deduction and of imagination are based in rationality rather than in psychology with respect to the horror). Dd's teacher has deemed all of Poe's writing too short and she has already read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Journey to the Center of the Earth. I'll look into seeing if Verne wrote anything else that might appeal to her.
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Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 276
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Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 276 |
Asimov's "Foundation" series - for some deep philosophical questions about being and destiny.
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Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 1,457
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Joined: Jun 2010
Posts: 1,457 |
For Russian literature, I think the Bulgakov novel The Master and Margarita might appeal to a thoughtful twelve-year-old with a bent for the fantastic, or perhaps the works of Nikolai Gogol. Has she read any Kafka? The Castle is wonderful and hilarious.
I have a fondness for Stanislaw Lem; I think your daughter might enjoy The Cyberiad, The Star Diaries, A Perfect Vacuum, and many others. Other science-fictiony ideas of mine, off the top of my head, include The Sirens of Titan and War with the Newts.
Striving to increase my rate of flow, and fight forum gloopiness. 
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,181
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Joined: Feb 2011
Posts: 5,181 |
Some of the books that my 11yo has recently (well, within the last year or so) read for school/extension activities:
Jack London's Call of the Wild
The Red Badge of Courage,
Pride and Prejudice
Othello* (but be aware that there are sexual elements of this play)
Romeo and Juliet* (ditto on the above)
A Midsummer Night's Dream* (ditto on the above, though less obvious here)
To Kill a Mockingbird
Fahrenheit 451
Something Wicked This Way Comes
Night
* These are available as fantastic "side-by-side" editions with the full unedited text on one page and the modern English equivalent on the facing page. My daughter first read R&J that way when she was about seven-- it helped her follow the play when we saw it that year.
I'd think that To Kill a Mockingbird or Something Wicked This Way Comes would be terrific choices. While the subject of rape is an uncomfortable thing, TKaM is not, by any means graphic in its treatment of that subject. Do be aware that there are racial slurs used in that book. (When DD read that, we talked a long time about the meaning of the word "common" as a choice of genius on the part of Harper Lee.)
One thing that I try to be careful of is to preserve those few novels that are slated for the curriculum as "pristine" where we can. I saved TKaM for DD for this fall because even though she could have read it a year ago, I knew that her 9th grade English class would be reading it. It's hard enough that she generally reads so much more than her classmates-- it just takes the joy out of it if she's read something several times by the time she sees it in school. BTDTGTTS.
We definitely struggle with reading material around here, as well. I haven't been able to completely vet content since DD was about eight; she just reads so darned FAST. My DD loves John Grisham, Dan Brown, and Jodi Piccoult, but wowie-o... I warn her off of stuff that has overt sexual content. She's just not ready for it, so she actually appreciates me telling her "No, it has sexual content."
On the other hand, she is slowly becoming okay with some of that, which is opening up new avenues for her.
Other things she's really enjoyed lately--
Patrick MacManus' books,
Alan Gordon's Fool's Guild historical mysteries,
H.G. Wells
George Orwell
Mark Twain
Dickens
Marley and Me
DonnaJo Napoli's YA novels (these are really very good, even if DD blows through them pretty fast)
FWIW, I think I was about twelve when I first read The Bell Jar. <shudders> Not good.
Schrödinger's cat walks into a bar. And doesn't.
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