On Tue, 26 Nov 2002, H. T. wrote: > >> >>You gave him LOVECRAFT and you are complaining that he's too >>young for CS Lewis and Vlad??!?!?!?!!! >> >I know! I know! This is how I know for positive that my father and >fathers wife would KILL ME if I gave him anything to mature. I >believe they told me as they ripped it out of his hands while he read >it aloud. > Oho-HO! So *that's* what you have been hiding behind your innocent query! I see that no one has yet mentioned Terry Pratchett. I guess that it's up to me, then. Besides the obvious Discworld books, he's written 2 non-Discworld series that are aimed more specifically at younger readers. Those are the Johnny Maxwell books & the Bromeliad (Truckers, Diggers, Wings). There's also "The Amazing Maurice & his Educated Rodents", which is Discworld. Terry Pratchett's books tend to have a strong humanist motif, and there's a certain subversiveness in many of them. The more recent ones do have a certain darkness to them, but unless the parental units read the books themselves, cover to cover, they probably won't see it. ( "Question Authority", because Authority may not know what the hell it's doing ) "Whoever had created humanity had left in a major design flaw. It was its tendency to bend at the knees." -- Cmdr. Vimes on kings, "Feet of Clay", by Terry Pratchett.