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(To be clear, child in question is now 20)

The problem was coming up with enough to read that wasn't too scary when he was young. Even the Hobbit was rough. Harry Potter is downright scary. Book series were falling in a week. We never had Christmas present books that lasted till New Year's.

I'm pretty sure that we have The Dark is Rising, but it was never one that was a reread, if they ever got through it. I've read the Little Fuzzy and other H Beam Piper books, and they're a little 50's to really let a young kid loose on.

Terry Pratchett worked, specifically the Bromeliad Trilogy. Eragon was ok. There was a set of Wings of Fire. And bookshelves of others that are gone by now.



My youngest is 21.

See my comment elsethread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44126584

The problem of course is "the newspapers in utopia are boring" (to paraphrase Mark Twain) and "tales of the land of the happy nice people" doesn't make for much of a story.

Another couple of books which I enjoyed sharing w/ my kids were _Divers Down! Adventure Beneath Hawaiian Seas_ and _The Adventures of the Mad Scientists Club_ (and various sequels).




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