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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1651 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 1, 2026

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YA SF recommendations wanted!

The Mini-STEMlord of this thread is 10 this week and we are still trying to get him to read books. Based on the films and TV he likes, his preferred genre of fiction is SF, with a mild preference for harder SF. He has asked for the books of Dune and The Martian after watching the movies, but found them too difficult.

Apart from going old school and introducing him to the Heinlein juveniles, I have no idea what SF is out there for younger readers. Mini-STEMlord has a reading age of at least 14 and can handle science concepts at an A-level to first year undergraduate level. (In terms of maths, he has mastered algebra but hasn't started trig or calculus. He was able to follow a 1st-year undergraduate biochem course on MIT OpenCourseware when he was healthy and rested but not when he was tired or had a cold). But he has no reading stamina - with one exception the longest thing he has read is a Wikipedia article. I don't know if that means anthologies of short stories would be better than novels.

Any advice appreciated.

I think there are two angles you can push on. One is see if he goes for some easy slop, on the theory that he's gotta get comfortable with the mechanics of reading, sitting still for a good few hours, etc. The other is to point him at harder things to see if he goes for the challenge. Since he's asked for and bounced off Dune and The Martian, maybe go for the first.

Matthew Reilly writes paper action movies, but he might need to be 1-2 years older for those? Animorphs is a good read but gets dark later. It can also be a vector for weird-kid-ism and the fandom seems to attract a lot of trans and furry elements. Most of the great YA I can think of is either non-SF and/or is for a couple of years in the future (e.g. Tomorrow series). Maybe easy fantasy would be good?

Also, 10 might still be young enough to enjoy some reading aloud with the parents. You could read the harder books with him and then you can answer his questions before things become too frustrating.

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