My morning gripe
Jul. 18th, 2014 08:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjornwilde I know they are not omniscient, but lately I am getting very frustrated with Common Sense Media as they never seem to have the books I want to check out for my daughter. She is wanting books again and has specifically asked for urban fantasy. This is challenging as she is 12 and most of the UB books I know have questionable content.
Then again, she has read the Hunger Games and Divergent series, so content controls don't need to be quite so stringent as they used to be. I'd love to introduce her to October Daye but I can't remember how those books would compare to Hunger Games as far as content would go. Then again, she is also really good about not reading anything that makes her uncomfortable. I was also thinking of Gaiman's Neverwhere (which Common Sense Media didn't have).
In other gripes, yes Chris Evans played Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch, but no, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers are unlikely to appear on screen anytime soon so he will not have to play both Johnny Storm and Steve Rogers. Besides, Michael B. Jordan is Johnny now.
Also, yes, Ethan is an American Werewolf in London. You aren't original so please stop.
Then again, she has read the Hunger Games and Divergent series, so content controls don't need to be quite so stringent as they used to be. I'd love to introduce her to October Daye but I can't remember how those books would compare to Hunger Games as far as content would go. Then again, she is also really good about not reading anything that makes her uncomfortable. I was also thinking of Gaiman's Neverwhere (which Common Sense Media didn't have).
In other gripes, yes Chris Evans played Johnny Storm, aka the Human Torch, but no, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers are unlikely to appear on screen anytime soon so he will not have to play both Johnny Storm and Steve Rogers. Besides, Michael B. Jordan is Johnny now.
Also, yes, Ethan is an American Werewolf in London. You aren't original so please stop.
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Date: 2014-07-18 04:03 pm (UTC)Of Gaiman, Stardust would work for her age, Diana Wynne Jones if she hasn't read her before or Frances Hardinge, both have written a lot. I think I'd hold off on Toby Daye until she's a little older but Neverwhere maybe could work, its been ages since I read it.
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Date: 2014-07-18 04:10 pm (UTC)I think I am going to skip Neverwhere for now just cause of the Old Firm and their joy in torture. But Stardust is perfect! I also think Good Omens can be fun but I'm going to look into it.
She loves Diana Wynne Jones, having read Howl's series. I should introduce her to Christomancy. She also just read Diana's last book, which was finished by Ursula K. Guin and loved it!
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Date: 2014-07-18 04:19 pm (UTC)Look over my Goodreads' as I read a lot of YA and MG and fantasy. My profile.
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Date: 2014-07-18 04:25 pm (UTC)She's just read "The Cats of Tanglewood Forest" by Charles and loved it. I think she'd love the crow girls so I'll look into his short stories. We are hoping to hit the library tonight so I will bookmark your profile for us to refer to. Thanks!
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Date: 2014-07-20 10:30 am (UTC)For Toby Daye, I think they really would not be any worse than THG or Divergent, honestly. Anything written under Seanan's name (Toby's books, the InCryptid books, Sparrow Hill Road (my fave of all her works, I think she'd probably really like this one), Indexing, Velveteen Vs., and I think one collection of short stories so far?) is intended to be pretty PG-13, and if your daughter is a voracious reader (as it sounds like she is), she shouldn't have any problems with them. There's a bit of language here and there in all of them, and some of the characters do have sex (it's only ever briefly mentioned, nothing even close to explicit), but I wouldn't hesitate to give any of them to a 12-year-old, especially a girl who already has a love of the genre.
As far as I can recall, Neverwhere is a bit darker/more adult, but in kind of an esoteric way, if that makes any sense? You might want to do a pre-read though, just in case.
It's not urban fantasy, and I don't know how much you know about Seanan's stuff under her penname, but if you would let her read something like Jurassic Park, or other Crichton-type sciencey thrillers, Seanan's Mira Grant stuff is also very good. More adult than her urban fantasy stuff, and you might want to pre-read if you're concerned about it, but depending on how precocious a reader she is, she might really enjoy them, especially Parasite. Newsflesh might give you pause as a parent because the two main characters of the trilogy are adopted siblings who are (spoilers, but y'know, you are trying to screen for your kid) in a (canonically admitted to be kind of fucked up, though not technically incestuous) physical relationship, so that trilogy might want to be something you save until she's a bit older. I know I would've been all over that at her age, but again, you know her better and I was reading a lot of stuff that some parents would not be comfortable letting their 12-year-olds read. Parasite (the only book currently out of her Parasitology series) doesn't have anything questionable in it to my mind, but as it's, again, a little more mature than her urban fantasy stuff, you might want to pre-read if she shows interest in possibly reading it.
As far as non-Seanan stuff, I highly recommend Diane Duane's Young Wizards series if she hasn't read it already, and everything Tamora Pierce has written, starting with the Circle of Magic and Song of the Lioness quartets. Both of those are more high fantasy than urban fantasy, but they're very solid series and definitely worth a check if she hasn't tried them yet. Also The Wild Road books by Gabriel King might interest her? It's fantasy-esque (aimed at 8-12 year olds iirc) and the characters are cats. I've heard very good things about it from adult friends who read the series AS adults, though I haven't had the chance myself.
Lastly, something to maybe keep in mind to make available to her (if she continues to like fantasy) in the next couple of years are Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books. I wouldn't get her into them quite yet, and there are a couple of rapes in the series (though none explicit, thankfully) and characters do have sex (though again, nothing explicit) and it's very... full of cliches, and is very tropey 80s-90s high fantasy. HOWEVER it's still some of the best queer and female representation I've found in fantasy novels. Tamora Pierce is good at female representation but there isn't really much in the way of queer representation. The Valdemar books are not perfect by a long shot, but they are imaginative and tend to (I've found) be very inspiring creatively to the people who love it, as well as showing positive representations of queer characters - they may be the minority, but they are treated with respect and (in the case of Vanyel, Tylendel, Stefan, and Andesha) central characters to their stories.
You don't really get a lot of positively-portrayed (or portrayed at all) queer characters in fantasy outside of like e-published fantasy erotica, and while pretty much all of the characters in the Toby Daye books (except Toby herself) are queer, only May is really shown BEING queer at the moment, and not much time is spent on her relationship with her girlfriend, which is part of why the Valdemar books are so important to me, and despite their problematic points I will recommend them until the day I die.
And my wife, at 12, was reading a lot of Redwall (in addition to Tamora Pierce) - it's not really fantasy and definitely not urban fantasy, but you might get her the first book and try it out. It's a children's series, but I still adore them, so it might be worth a shot if you can get ahold of them!
er, and now I've rambled on for WAY too long and will leave you to sort through these to see if any of the recommendations are useful to you or not. ^^;; Other than Seanan's books this is all stuff that's either aimed at her age group or things that my wife or I were reading at about that time in our lives, so hopefully you can make some sense out of my ramblings and find some things for her to devour. :)
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Date: 2014-07-20 04:00 pm (UTC)I have read the first of the Newsflesh series and I don't think my daughter would go for zombies. But the Incryptid series might be up her alley and I have been meaning to read it.
And thank you for reminding me of the Valdemar series! I've read a few of those and enjoyed them.
Cursing I am fine with. She plays Minecraft online and her mother has a sailors mouth from time to time.
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Date: 2014-07-20 04:05 pm (UTC)Haha brilliant! Valdemar is probably a "wait for 13" series IMO - it's a small difference but a huge one at the same time, you know? Definitely a great series tho. ~SPARKLEPONIES~
InCryptid is great, and if she's interested in urban fantasy I think she'll really like it. The first book has dragon princesses. :3 And Aeslin Mice. They are possibly the best thing ever.
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Date: 2014-07-20 04:07 pm (UTC)And I swear, I don't mean to be pushing Milliways this much, but we have the Aeslin Mice in bar! I think Batya plays them as a matter of fact. =)
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Date: 2014-07-20 04:09 pm (UTC)They're pretty awesome, IMO.
AHAHAHAH I think I heard about that! XD perfect, the bar absolutely needs little clusters of insane religious mice, for SURE.