[redrock]

My 7 year old daughter is starting to get interested in Heinlein's books........

..don't know which one I should start her off with tho.

So many to choose from.

redrock

[AuntB]

"My seven year old daughter..."

Oh, redrock, how can that sweet child be that old ALREADY!

I've really enjoyed this thread, redrock, thanks for posting it. It's a delight in this narrow minded, bigoted world we live in. It's nice to be reminded that there are still real thinkers out there. As Mark Twain commented on the human race: They don't think, they think they think.

[ihatemyalarmclock]

My 7 year old daughter is starting to get interested in Heinlein's books........ ..don't know which one I should start her off with tho.

In 1970, I stumbled across the one and only Heinlein book in my woefully-understocked Junior High School library: "Have Space Suit, Will Travel."

I was eleven at the time, but a bright seven-year-old could doubtless get a lot of fun out of it. (One of the two main characters is a 10-year-old girl, the other a 17-18 year old boy.)

Kip and Peewee are brought together through an unlikely set of circumstances, beginning an odyssey that takes them from the moon to Pluto to a planet in the Vega star system.

Like the 1950's TV show from which the title is adapted, good and bad characters are clearly defined (there's a monster for conflict and an empath for comfort.)

And there's not a hint of sex anywhere in the book.

That does not make it a "kiddie-book," however. You don't remember a kid's book as an adult and think: "So THAT's what he meant by rotation in a fourth spatial dimension!"

Part of "Space Suit's" charm is its ability to function on whatever level the reader can accept. It's great fun at any age, and surely a great Heinlein starter piece.

[NativeNewYorker]

Podkayne of Mars

ISBN: 0671876716

...has a young female main character...

[Lurker]

I recommend "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel"

L

[RightWhale]

The Rolling Stone.