Sci-Fi easy readers?

March 18, 2008 1:46 PM

Book-rec-filter time! Looking for sci-fi themed books for a young child. Can you suggest any?

My son, who is not quite 5, is hugely interested in space, rockets, the planets, robots, etc. He's also just becoming comfortable with reading to himself. I'm looking for picture books and/or easy readers that have a scientific or sci-fi feel to them; do any of you have recommendations to share? Fiction or non-fiction -- he loves both.

posted by Janta to media & arts (9 comments total)

Here is a list of children's science fiction books from the Monroe County Public Library. Most public libraries have pages similar to this, so it wouldn't hurt to check out what your local library website has to offer.
posted by rokabiri at 2:08 PM on March 18, 2008

DK Readers has a couple space-themed books and several Star Wars titles.

Picture books I like with a SF theme:
Mars Needs Moms! by Berkeley Breathed
Hedgie Blasts Off! by Jan Brett
Zathura by Chris Van Allsburg

There are also some nice NF ones that might be a little too hard for him to read now, but read them with him and he'll get it, or he'll enjoy sitting and looking at the pictures himself. I just got this book in my children's department.
posted by Cricket at 2:43 PM on March 18, 2008

I learned to read only after being given a copy of Explorers on the Moon. The artwork was so compelling. I had to know what was in those speech bubbles!
posted by Dan Brilliant at 2:46 PM on March 18, 2008

Nova the Robot is a big hit around our house.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 3:08 PM on March 18, 2008

When I was an early reader, I loved glossy popular astronomy books with lots of pictures, like Timothy Ferris' Galaxies and Carl Sagan's Cosmos. I'm not going to tell you that I processed all the words at age four, but I carried those two around and read them for years.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:32 PM on March 18, 2008

This may well be too old for him, but I bet it'd be wonderful as a read-aloud book: The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet. There are a couple of sequels if he likes it.
posted by kristi at 8:55 PM on March 18, 2008

Recent news made me think of this one - The Little Prince. Good one to read to a little one and discuss - my parents read it to me.
posted by batgrlHG at 9:18 PM on March 18, 2008

Robot By Jan Pienkowski is a great pop-up book about robots, surprisingly :) I have fond memories of that from my sci-fi obsessed childhood.
posted by Joh at 9:57 PM on March 18, 2008

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions -- I expect I'll be requesting pretty much everything listed here from our library! Rokabiri, that list is perfect, exactly what I was looking for. I couldn't find a similar list on my local library's site, and every list I found via google seemed to be aimed at older readers. Thanks again!
posted by Janta at 3:13 PM on March 22, 2008