Children's Science Fiction—history of an often ignored genre.

All the talk about the difficulty of selling science fiction in children's (mid-grade) and YA has got me thinking about some of the best science fiction novels out there in children's fiction… The genre to my mind has it's roots in the interest in space exploration in the fifties and sixties and a general interest in encouraging children to think and play about it. Children and YA Science Fiction has a solid history, despite the claims these days that it's a "hard sell" and I'd like to see more updated stories available to young people. So, I'm going to highlight its history with a few of the major authors that keep moving this forward.

I sincerely hope the wonderful people I've met online who write in this genre will soon be adding to it. Hey, I have a few mid-grade science fiction stories I'd like to write and market someday myself. All the books here are ones I loved dearly as a kid, but I did grow up in the inner city with limited funds and resources, so if I've missed any great children's science fiction novels, tell me what kid's books lit you on fire for Science Fiction.

It seems to me that science fiction for children really got going in the 1950s. Two authors from this period stand out in my mind. Whimsical and hopelessly out of date when it comes to the planets involved, their strength rather lies in their creative characters and fun plots.

"The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet" by Eleanor Cameron.

This classic mid-grade novel from the 1950s is a delight to read, although the sequels are way too sentimental for my stomach. Book one is a lot of fun. My father fell in love with it when he was young, and thus read it to us—eager to share this story of space travel.

David and Chuck read an article in the newspaper that offers a reward for the best built rocket ship. They built one and take it to the strange Mr. Bass, who promptly proclaims it perfect and installs an engine. (They also paint some special stuff on it that makes it space worthy… go figure, but the science takes the backseat to the classic boys on an adventure angle.) Mr. Bass sends them on a mission to a secret "planet" or rather moon, which orbits the earth but is invisible without special equipment. Mr. Bass is convinced that the people of Basidium are in desperate need, and of course they are. With only a few hours to make it home in time, the boys must find an answer to the perplexing problem destroying these cute little aliens. (Who'd have thought the chicken the boys bring on the space ship as a mascot would be the real hero of the day?)

The enduring popularity of this mid-grade novel is evident in the fact that it's still in print, with brand new covers and art.

"Space Cat" by Ruthven Todd and Paul Galdone.

This book, also from the 1950s, is wonderful and part of a delightful little series. The first book has been recently reprinted, perhaps because of renewed interest in space travel and science fiction for kids. I sincerely hope the rest of the books will soon follow… book three is hard to find a copy of currently, being a rare book.

Spaceball the cat is a stray who ends up the pet of an astronaut on the government's fledgling space exploration program. After sneaking on board a test flight, the program decides to fully train and outfit Spaceball with his own cat space suit. (Purrr-fect, really. You gotta love his personal sleeping hammock in the space ship too.) This book proves that there's nothing new about the rising blend of anthro books with science fiction on CC. Spaceball had it down first.

The sequels, "Space Cat Visits Venus", "Space Cat Meets Mars", and "Space Cat and the Kittens" are all way too much fun. You just have to ignore the fact there's intelligent plant life on the moon and Venus, and that Mars is inhabited by a mind-speaking red female cat and has enough atmosphere you can go around in the day without a space helmet. But why let reality spoil such a fun set of mid-grade novels?

Well, let's move forward a little into some more serious work that features young adult, rather than mid-graders…

"The White Mountains" by John Christopher.

Written in the 1960s the Tripod series by John Cristopher is a compelling children's series about Earth ruled by aliens, humans subjected, and a resistance banding together to take a stand.

Will Parker has only ever known the peaceful and rural life humans currently live as servants of the tripods. Capping, a way of arresting human thinking and development and keeping the population docile by sticking a computer chip in people's heads, is considered a rite of passage by the humans. Full of doubts after talking to a stranger who's "capping" appears to have gone awry, leaving him supposedly "mentally deranged", Will decides to run away instead and go in search of the refuge in the White Mountains that the stranger speaks of.

The story is continued in "The City of Gold and Lead" and "The Pool of Fire." There's also a prequel, "When the Tripods Came." The two sequels are terrific, I didn't find the prequel as engaging, but it was alright.

The science fiction is less outdated in these than the first two, but most importantly, these novels are character driven and compelling. Instead of whimsical like the 50s books, they tackle universal human issues and don't shy away from difficult questions and dilemmas. Are some causes worth sacrificing your life for? Can we really rule ourselves with peace and justice? Is freedom worth its cost? Like adult science fiction, they ask us to re-examine our present and ask ourselves where we're going with it.


"Enchantress from the Stars" by Sylvia Louise Engdahl.

In 1971, a Newberry Honor was given to a science fiction novel, a YA science fiction romance, no less. A strong believer in the importance of space travel, Ms. Engdahl actually wrote six YA science fiction novels, and this was her first. It's an engaging blend of anthropology, science fiction, and fantasy, and a book I'd love to use to discuss anthropology with kids.

A diverted flight home by an emergency gives teenage Elana a first glimpse of youngling culture, that is a society of people who've not yet culturally evolved to the point of being able to join the Federation. The Federation Anthropology Service's duty is to study and protect youngling civilizations without revealing their existence to them, and it's Elana's dream to follow in the footsteps of her father and her boyfriend and join as an agent.

On this planet of Andrecia though, a youngling society at the technology of the middle ages is being threatened by another youngling society that has discovered space travel and has imperial aspirations. They intend to subjugate these new "aliens" they've discovered and the Federation needs to stop them before the less developed society is obliterated without revealing their own existence.

Despite her father's orders, Elana sneaks onto a shuttle so she can see the Andrecian younglings up close. Only a tragic death of another team member forces her father to use her to help trick the invaders into getting scared off colonizing this particular planet. Elana pretends to be an "Enchantress" who instructs a few of the Andrecians in telepathic powers (or as they call it magic) so they can spook off the invaders. The best of these students is Georyn, someone Elana should not fall in love with, and who's connection to her might be the only hope for making the plan work.

This story is philosophical and somewhat tragic for all the main characters involved, but I love it anyway, despite my aversion to such things. It's one of my favorite novels.

Sylvia Louise Engdahl wrote also a rather chilling sequel called "The Far Side of Evil" also about Elana, working with the Federation on a youngling planet on the brink of nuclear war. In trying to stop her rash (and in love) co-worker from disclosure, Elana ends up a prisoner, facing an interrogator who is determined to bring her to her knees and discover her secrets. Elana's psychic powers could protect her from anything he plans to do, but to use them is to disclose who she is, which is forbidden by the oath she swore as an agent. Despite walking a very fine line involving torture, this book is YA and not quite as gruesome as it sounds… although it did make me swallow hard a couple of times.

Also published in the seventies were a YA science fiction romance called "Journey Between Worlds" and the "Children of the Star Trilogy", a set of novels about a teen who takes on a repressive society only to realize the realties of his dying planet are a heck of a lot more complicated than he thought.

Sadly the disinterest in YA science fiction saw all the books but the Newberry Honor winner go out of print, until in 2000, when renewed interest saw a reprint of Children of the Star as one volume. Since then Engdahl has updated both "The Far Side of Evil" and "Journey Between Worlds" to be less dated from the seventies. I plan to read Journey just as soon as I can get the spending money to grab myself a copy. Can't seem to find it at the library. I am hopeful though that the republishing of her books indicates a rising interest in YA SF.

Which leads to several well-known adult SF novels that have in recent times been re-packaged into the YA section, another hopeful sign for the genre. Both "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card (published first in 1985) and "Dragonflight" by Anne McCaffrey (published first in 1968) have been given kid-like covers and re-shelved in YA, along with a few of the author's other works with young MCs, to entice a younger generation. While kid's have gone shopping in the adult section of the store for science fiction involving space ships for most of the eighties and nineties, I think it's coming around again.


Unlike space adventures and foreign planets, near-future science fiction has remained quite popular in children's literature. Award winning books like "The Giver" by Lois Lowry (1993) and "A City of Ember" by Jeanne DuPrau (2003) indicate their growing popularity. There's two many of these to give a whole overview… so I'll just end by touching on one of my favorite, "Eva" by Peter Dickinson (1988), another author who writes a good amount of futuristic science fiction YA. The novel is about a girl who after her body is destroyed in an accident, has her mind imprinted into the body of a chimpanzee. Eva tries to live a "human" life after this, but comes to realize that too much of her is now chimp, and that with humans killing themselves off, the future of life on earth lies now with chimpanzees.

Lowry, DuPrau, and Dickinson are just three of a great many current authors turning out near-future science fiction for children, and have all written more novels in that direction. Hopefully this will in the end lead to renewed interest in more traditional science fiction for children—the exploration of space and other planets. Movie tie-ins with the Star Wars movies for children have also done well in recent years. Despite how I generally look down on move-themed books, I must say that I'm a fan of Jude Watson (Scholastic's author who writes most of those) and read a good number of them because she's an excellent writer. Plus, finding recent mid-grade novels with space ships can be quite a challenge these days, because we've yet to come full circle to the space adventure novels of the 1950s.

While breaking into this market at the moment sounds incredibly tough, just looking over the genre's history inspires me. I think there's going to be plenty more mid-grade and YA science fiction novels breaking out of obscurity and taking on new interest. Maybe I'll dust off that poor novel about a kid on a colony on a space station on Mars after all… it was a good idea and I'd hate to give it up just because the market is a bit challenging at the moment.

Long live mid-grade and YA Science Fiction!