My first fantasy book was the Dragon Lance series as a very young child. Of course the later books have gotten poorly written, and the storyline of the books was destroyed through the later books i think they are a great beginning fantasy. Atleast as far as the first thre go. The dragonlance chronicales (the first three in the nfinity long series,) are worth a read. Though i suggest being wary, i liked them as a yongster and even to this day i buy every book in the main story line just to see what else new is happening, and i dont ven like the books anymore. Thomas J >From: "H. T." <electrictwilight at hotmail.com> >To: dragaera at dragaera.info >Subject: A question re: Begining Fantacy for Youth >Date: Sun, 24 Nov 2002 01:05:42 +0000 > >Since it appears the majority of everyone that had typed in the discussion >of "fantasy" had began reading fantasy when they were still young I thought >I might ask what is appropriate for a young fantasy reader? > >I have an 11-year old step-brother who very much enjoys fantasy, and he has >asked me what else there is in this genera to read. I, however, do not know >exactly what to tell him. To tie this post a little bit into this >discussion board, I will say that I hesitate to tell him to read Steven's >novels, because (no offence to the author), but, my experience in reading >his works is that they are written to a more mature audience (which is >great because we do need something to read that is not tiresome because it >is geared at children). Though I think Steven is at least the most >interesting if not the best fantasy writer out there today, and I would >love to give my step-brother a copy of TPG or Jhereg because then we could >have many not-so-great discussions regarding Steven’s works, I also >hesitate at doing this because my father or his mother would murder me if I >were to give him something to read above his maturity level (they have been >asking me for the last nine-years when I am going to get out of this “dark >phase”, so I can only imagine what they would do if I were to help my >step-brother into one). Because I did not start reading fantasy until I was >already an adult, I have mostly been geared to authors that write for an >older audience, so with very few exceptions, I do not know what is out >there that is appropriate for him. (I also might add that I have not the >faintest idea of what the maturity level of an 11-year old is these days, >so again, I have no ideas). Do any of you that started reading all of this >when you were his age, have any thoughts? > >P.S. For those of you that cringe at poor syntax and diction please forgive >me, I only had a few seconds to write these thoughts down. > >_________________________________________________________________ >Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online >http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 helps eliminate e-mail viruses. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus