{"id":2947,"date":"2021-02-12T19:41:41","date_gmt":"2021-02-13T01:41:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lfs.org\/blog\/?p=2947"},"modified":"2024-01-03T20:41:51","modified_gmt":"2024-01-04T02:41:51","slug":"lfs-adds-prometheus-young-adult-fiction-honor-roll-as-recommended-reading-guide-for-children-teenagers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/lfs-adds-prometheus-young-adult-fiction-honor-roll-as-recommended-reading-guide-for-children-teenagers\/","title":{"rendered":"LFS adds Prometheus Young Adult Fiction Honor Roll as recommended reading guide for children, teenagers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Michael Grossberg<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Young people are the readers, writers and citizens of tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, the next generation will also become advocates for liberty, peace and justice for all. Yet, that is not inevitable or automatic; children must be taught the heritage of humankind and must be exposed to the best of our common culture.<\/p>\n

Encouraging the younger generations to read good books, including outstanding science fiction and fantasy and the literature of liberty, is the goal of a newly created list of past Prometheus Award-winners.<\/p>\n

This recommended reading list, designed for children and teenagers but also as a guide for their parents and grandparents choosing gifts or making suggestions, is now posted on the LFS website as the \u201cPrometheus Award Young Adult Honor Roll.\u201d<\/p>\n

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To compile the new honor roll, LFS leaders recently re-examined the growing list of nearly 100 works of fiction that have been recognized over more than four decades by the Prometheus Awards. The goal: to find novels and stories that are especially accessible to young readers \u2013 children and teenagers.<\/p>\n

In retrospect, a surprising number of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees do fit the bill quite well as Young Adult works (also called juvenile fiction, especially decades ago.)<\/p>\n

That includes three Prometheus Hall of Fame inductees: Alongside Night,<\/i>a 1979 novel by J. Neil Schulman (inducted in 1989), Red Planet,\u00a0<\/i>a 1949 novel by Robert Heinlein (inducted in 1996) and \u201cThe Emperor\u2019s New Clothes,\u201d a n 1837 fable by Hans Christian Anderson (inducted in 2000.)<\/p>\n

Of all the works included on the list, the one perhaps most appropriate to introduce to a young child would be Anderson\u2019s classic fable. \u201cThe Emperor\u2019s New Clothes,\u201d<\/a> beyond its imagination and wit, teaches a valuable lesson about the importance of questioning authority, facing reality and trusting one\u2019s own senses and judgment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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For teenagers, though, either Heinlein\u2019s Red Planet\u00a0<\/i>or Schulman\u2019s Alongside Night\u00a0<\/i>could be excellent introductions to both Young Adult fiction and the literature of liberty.The list also includes five Prometheus Best Novel winners, including Ken MacLeod\u2019s Learning the World,\u00a0<\/i>Harry Turtledove\u2019s The Gladiator,\u00a0<\/i>Cory Doctorow\u2019s Little Brother\u00a0<\/i>and its sequel Homeland;\u00a0<\/i>and Delia Sherman\u2019s The Freedom Maze.<\/i><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

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BEST FOR CHILDREN<\/strong>
\nOf these novels, younger readers (say, roughly between 6 and 13 years old) may find The Freedom Maze\u00a0<\/em>most accessible and the best starting point on the Prometheus-recognized reading list.<\/p>\n

The evils of slavery and the goodness of liberty are dramatized simply but powerfully in Sherman\u2019s young-adult historical fantasy novel about an adolescent girl of 1960 who is magically sent back in time to 1860 when her family owned slaves on a Louisiana plantation.<\/p>\n

Although geared to children in avoiding some of the institution of slavery\u2019s more grisly extremes, the novel does not whitewash the past or its cruelties while exploring and affirming the universal value of personhood and, implicitly, self-ownership.<\/p>\n

Sherman also explores the closely linked themes of family, womanhood and courage in her coming-of-age story, at about 250 pages easily readable and highly recommended for children (especially grades five to eight).<\/p>\n

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BETTER FOR TEENAGERS<\/strong><\/p>\n

For pure science fiction with a focus on first contact with alien intelligences, MacLeod\u2019s Learning the World\u00a0<\/em>could be an excellent choice, especially for teenagers.<\/p>\n

MacLeod\u2019s inventive novel explores the politics and uncertainties involved from two very different first-contact perspectives: the natives of the planet and the \u201calien\u201d (human) visitors.<\/p>\n

In some ways modeled on classic Heinlein juveniles,\u00a0Learning the World<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>offers as a primary viewpoint character a teen girl living on an interstellar colony ship about to enter a new solar system. As she learns more about the world, the reader learns with her.<\/p>\n

Beyond those Prometheus winners, the new Young Adult Honor Roll also lists four works that became Best Novel finalists \u2013 including J.K. Rowling\u2019s most anti-authoritarian novel<\/a> in her Harry Potter series. (If you\u2019ve read the novels or seen the films, you can likely guess its title \u2013 really not that tall an order, after all.)<\/p>\n

Also identified at the end of the new Honor Roll are five additional Prometheus-recognized works that may appeal to younger readers – even though the works were not specifically written with young readers as the primary audience and also have strong and undeniable appeal to adults.<\/p>\n

Of these works, many might agree that the two greatest \u2013 worth reading or rereading by children, teenagers and adults alike \u2013 are Ayn Rand\u2019s Anthem\u00a0<\/em>and George Orwell\u2019s Animal Farm. <\/em>Both have become widely read classics, with millions sold and neither work ever going out of print.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>For those who\u2019ve never read Ayn Rand, Anthem<\/a> <\/em>is a good place to start. Of her four novels, it\u2019s by far the shortest and the best introduction for younger readers. (On a personal note, I can recommend this strategy because I first read Rand when I discovered\u00a0Anthem<\/em> in seventh grade. That’s when fellow students of the more arty, intellectual, creative and liberal cliques were passing it around with glowing remarks, as if it was samizdat,<\/em> or underground literature, since it wasn’t assigned in school and we often were reading it secretly behind a textbook in the back of some boring classes.)<\/p>\n

Imaginative and inspirational with a tone of reverence and discovery, Anthem\u00a0<\/em>ranks as one of the great dystopian works of 20th\u00a0century literature, but also as the most concise and poetic.<\/p>\n

Its powerful and poignant theme: the rediscovery of the self. In Rand\u2019s mythic and post-apocalyptic future of a primitive tribal society, the rediscovery of the self and the individual\u2019s desire for freedom and to think independently is tantamount to a revolutionary act amid the collectivism of forced servitude, ignorance, fear, and stifling conformity.<\/p>\n

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Meanwhile, Orwell’s Animal Farm<\/em> <\/a>is far more than an animal fable. His cautionary tale, while set in the barnyard of a farm and using simple language accessible to young readers, metaphorically critiques the excesses of egalitarianism taken to an authoritarian extreme of “enforced equality” – which usually means that a political elite ends up far more powerful and wealthy than everyone else.<\/p>\n

To visit the new Honor Roll page, first visit the Prometheus Awards page<\/a> of the LFS website at lfs.org and click on the link under the headline Young Adult Honor Roll.\u201d \u00a0Or save this direct link: https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/YAHonorRoll.shtml<\/a><\/p>\n

P.S. This Honor Roll is not the only way that the LFS intends to raise the profile of Young Adult fiction and recognize it more in the coming years (more about that soon), but it\u2019s a start \u2013 and so this list is one expected to expand over time.<\/p>\n

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* See related\u00a0 introductory essay<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 about the LFS\u2019 40th<\/sup>anniversary retrospective series of Appreciations of past Prometheus Awards winners, with an overview of the awards\u2019 four-decade history.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Prometheus winners:<\/strong>\u00a0For a full list of winners \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the recently enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 on the LFS website, which has added convenient links to all published Appreciations of past winners.<\/p>\n

* Read\u00a0\u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 an essay in the June 2020 issue of the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/em>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the modern genre.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit volunteer association of libertarian sf\/fantasy fans and freedom-lovers.\u00a0Libertarian futurists believe cultural change is as (or more) vital as political change in achieving universal individual rights and a better world (perhaps eventually, worlds) for all.<\/p>\n

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By Michael Grossberg Young people are the readers, writers and citizens of tomorrow. Hopefully, the next generation will also become advocates for liberty, peace and justice for all. Yet, that is not inevitable or automatic; children must be taught the heritage of humankind and must be exposed to the best of our common culture. Encouraging … Continue reading LFS adds Prometheus Young Adult Fiction Honor Roll as recommended reading guide for children, teenagers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[31,1854,1862,2205,1124,1125,1860,996],"tags":[65,437,438,19,886,955,1001,1002,1000,141,46,998,999,439,997],"class_list":["post-2947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-awards-news","category-ayn-rand","category-george-orwell","category-ken-macleod","category-lfs-programs","category-updates","category-robert-heinlein","category-young-adult-fiction","tag-alongside-night","tag-animal-farm","tag-delia-sherman","tag-doctorow","tag-harry-potter","tag-heinlein","tag-honor-roll","tag-j-k-rowling","tag-macleod","tag-orwell","tag-prometheus-awards","tag-rand","tag-schulman","tag-the-freedom-maze","tag-young-adult-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-Lx","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2947"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6809,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2947\/revisions\/6809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}