Need suggestions for books for my kid!

goathead · Post by **goathead** » Sat Apr 23, 2011 5:00 am

Kind of a fun little read if he likes science at all

delle · Post by **delle** » Sat Apr 23, 2011 1:00 pm

Ack.

And I know just where he'd build it too.........

goathead · Post by **goathead** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 4:04 am

The shed in the back yard.
Isn't that where all nuclear reactor should be?

delle · Post by **delle** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 8:32 am

Well you know... this brings up a whole other question.

He HAS been asking lately how much it would cost to build a small one-room house in the corner of the lot.

I just assumed he wanted to move me and Ken into it when he played out the seige he's undoubtedly planning.

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 8:40 am

I recall the kid in Better Off Dead building a space shuttle in his garage.

If I was depressed, I would watch that.

delle · Post by **delle** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 8:53 am

Seems a little avant garde to give a kid recently hospitalized for suicidal behavior a book entitled Better off Dead.

Tho he did laugh heartily at my faux pas when I suggested that we play hangman while waiting for the doctors.....

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 9:09 am

You know, Delle, reading that post reminds me of Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" thing. I wonder how many of us had rough adolescences. (What? I spelled that right?) I dunno how much good it would do to have a bunch of internet friends of his mother telling him that just because things are rough now, that it won't be that way always, but I'm guessing that if he wants to hear that, we'd testify.

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 9:11 am

It's a film.

Can't say.
It would work for me.

Funniest teen suicide themed film ever.
Preview it yourself first.

Cusack's best film, though I love Map of the Human Heart.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_Off_Dead_(film)

delle · Post by **delle** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 9:32 am

Gyre: We are definitely not above morbid humour here. I'll certainly look it up (and preview it.... just 'cause....).

Fish: He is very well surrounded now, and has had his fill of "oh god, just wait!!! stories and anecdotes. (including my own admission to having tried the same thing when I was about his age). Fact is, now that everything is in the open and he has hope on the horizon for actual treatment and psychiatric sessions (rather than the crap psychologists we've been seeing thus far) -- and most especially a real plan opening up educational alternatives for him (a HUGE weight for him) -- he's in a better place now than he's been probably in years.

To put the hangman game in perspective: We'd been sitting in his little cubicle for long enough to have tired with watching the fellow crazies milling about in the hall, when he started lamenting the fact that he couldn't have the electronic Wheel of Fortune game that was in his (confiscated) bag.

I said I could fix that... went to the nurses station and got a paper and pen and started drawing out the all-too-familiar blanks and alphabet for the game. Just as I was about to start to make the gallows he shouted out "you are not SERIOUSLY proposing a game of hangman here, are you?"

We both just about fell off the bed laughing at the impropriety of it all.

He's now calling it one of his favorite moments.

edited because I really suck when I go too fast and don't re-read

theCryptofishist · Post by **theCryptofishist** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 9:43 am

Oh, no need to tell me about the uses of dark humor. I saved the tidbit that the name of the train that ran me over was the "Vienna Waltz" till exactly the right moment.

Bob · Post by **Bob** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 9:51 am

Weird thread premise. By the time I was 14 I was pretty much immune to anyone's suggestions, but then I grew up with good libraries and a bunch of new & used bookstores nearby.

Anyhow, consider some classics, eg The Odyssey, Robert Graves' books on Greek mythology or other translations of the myths eg The Golden Fleece, Richard Burton's translation of 'The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night', the Mahabharata, and so on, these being the foundations of modern fantasy and such.

You can find all this via Project Gutenberg; search by author, title and subject (eg Fantasy, Folklore, Horror, Mythology, Native America etc.). Skim the online versions and then go buy a hard copy if that's your thing.

gyre · Post by **gyre** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 10:08 am

I loved the Ramayana.

Read it at that age.
Shastri translation, I think.

delle · Post by **delle** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 10:11 am

Ooops.

Yep.

Explaination below

delle · Post by **delle** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 10:16 am

theCryptofishist wrote:Oh, no need to tell me about the uses of dark humor. I saved the tidbit that the name of the train that ran me over was the "Vienna Waltz" till exactly the right moment.

Thats sooooooooooo wrong that its come right around to beome hilarious.

and I'm sure you must wonder if your dna dances with it still

Sure hope this doesn't post twice.... or thrice even. Keeps telling me I can't post so soon.... even tho I've just signed in on another computer (mine having been hijacked while I was in the shower). I hadn't posted in at least 15 minutes!!!!

Tiahaar · Post by **Tiahaar** » Sun Apr 24, 2011 5:49 pm

My fave list (several have been mentioned already):

Piers Anthony's 'Xanth' series, lots of great puns, magic, and sentient animals

Anne McCaffrey's 'Dragon Riders of Pern' series, sentient dragons, otherworld adventures

Storm Constantine's 'Wraeththu' series, future alternate earth species (gay themes)

Mercedes Lackey's 'Last Herald-Mage' series, magic, medieval otherworld (gay themes)

The 'Xanth' books are great if you want a lot of material

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanth