Books for Children and Young Adults

[helmuth_hubener]

I feel that reaching people when they are young is so essential, and such a critical thing for us to focus on. People are receptive when young. Their minds are particularly alive and creative. And, I feel, they are particularly biased towards freedom, and thus susceptible to a message of freedom.

I would love it if we could post many examples of books that influenced us for liberty when growing up, or ones which we think have good libertarian messages, or which for whatever reason would be good to share with the young people in our lives. Christmas is now coming up, after all!

Here's three to start out:

Rash I just read this with my wife. Review-wise, I give it a very half-hearted, maybe negative, review, because it had a lot of swearing we had to bleep out and I did not like the main character much -- I didn't think he was nearly hostile enough to the outrageous system oppressing him (and everyone), and because the author... well, let's just say I didn't like the ending. But maybe you will. It's not horrible. The book is about the United Safer States of America, set about 50 years in the future, and is a pretty good dystopia. The book's message, of course, is about how ridiculous our current obsession about health and safety is, and what terrible and tyrannical consequences will result if we carry on our present path. It has high reviews on Amazon. Just because I did not fall in love with this book does not mean you won't. And I did enjoy reading it. It just wasn't a top favorite.

The Walton Street Tycoons This one, I did love. It's all about kids in a town that's declining and dying economically, taking entrepreneurial initiative and all their fun business adventures. They fight the man, they learn that the free market works and causes all kinds of wonderful side-effects -- like they make friends with the unpopular girl, because it turns out she's really good at something! And in business, productivity is king. Silly, shallow cliquishness is too expensive to maintain when you're trying to make a profit. Anyway, it's fantastic. Good, likeable characters, good lessons, good story, and strong, unadulterated liberty message.

The Great Brain This series is unbelievably fantastic. My favorite series as a kid. Tom was one of my heroes. The author is certainly not consciously setting out to give a libertarian message. But nevertheless, the books show the kids taking charge of their lives, doing "adult" things, not letting adults rule over them, showing respect for each other and for property rights, and of course making money in a free-market entrepreneurial way. There's no safety police anywhere in sight when Tom and J.D. build a roller coaster coming off their barn roof. There's no gambling police when they make a killing betting on horse races. It's just a good, free world, populated by a good, ambitious kid, and his loyal brother.

[helmuth_hubener]

Anyone?

[helmuth_hubener]

With all the minds here, I think we could produce the definitive list. Or at least the best one available anywhere. That would be a valuable resource to a parent, or teacher, or anyone who knows young people. That is: to everyone.

[familydog]

My favorite book as a child was The Big Orange Spot. It helped teach me the value of property rights and individualism. The writing style makes it great for kids learning how to read.

[tod evans]

As kids our family enjoyed "My Side of the Mountain", my son has read it at least 3-4 times.

[edit]

I also remember rereading dogeared copies of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.

[helmuth_hubener]

Big Orange Spot, My Side of the Mountain, and the Little House books... all books I have read, and all ones I have loved!

Maybe that's how we got to be liberty lovers: we all read the same books!

[Ender]

Big Orange Spot, My Side of the Mountain, and the Little House books... all books I have read, and all ones I have loved!

Maybe that's how we got to be liberty lovers: we all read the same books!

Ender's Game

This book has turned more nonreaders into readers than any book I know.

[helmuth_hubener]

Ender's Game

This book has turned more nonreaders into readers than any book I know.

I knew your pick before I read it, Ender! Read it at 12 with Chicken Pox. What was/were the particularly liberty-relevant part/parts, to you?

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

There is a series of books by a guy named Michael Malgeri. One is called Johnny's Gold. Another is Johnny Profit. I actually have not read these books, but just know about them. I will check them out some day to see if they are any good.

Good thread, too. Very useful. Thanks.

[helmuth_hubener]

Here's the link to them: http://www.amazon.com/Michael-Malgeri/e/B004HBNIK2/

They definitely look very political. I look somewhat askance at the one warning about global warming. But maybe they are good. I don't know.

[helmuth_hubener]

Here's one that is terrific for little kids, especially little boys:

Make Way for the Highway!

It glories in how awesome the big machinery is, and any boy's got to love that. It teaches how a road is made, and accurately at that. And then it has a great lesson in private property rights. There is a lone hold-out, and ultimately, her rights prevail. She is respected. What could be more libertarian?

[tangent4ronpaul]

I'll second the great brain series and ender's game.
Heinlein's starship troopers and another I can't remember the title of are good.
The Stainless Steel Rat series
Harriet the spy
Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys series

More pragmatically:
A mathematician reads the newspaper
How to lie with statistics
Polya: How to solve it
Turning numbers into knowledge (HS and college age +) http://www.amazon.com/Turning-Number.../dp/0970601921
The HS liberation Handbook

-t

[Carson]

Are you guys hep to Hobbits?

The Hobbit;

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


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/061...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Chapter 1

An Unexpected Party

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.

[mosquitobite]

Ender's Game

This book has turned more nonreaders into readers than any book I know.

Had never heard of the book and it's now a movie!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adOaCKbWp7A

[tangent4ronpaul]

related:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...61#post5290761

-t

[fr33]

I'm having a hard time remembering liberty-oriented books that I read when I was a child. Ingalls Wilder books of course.

Some modern young adult books I've read as an adult are the Hunger Games books.

[fr33]

Oh I remembered one;

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

[Bryan]

+1 on The Great Brain.

I would add in "The Red Tape Gang" - though I can't remember all the details from that long ago. SPOILER: The Red Tape Gang is about a group of kids who see the downfalls of bureaucratic red tape and take matters into their own hands.


There is a short story that one of my classes read in 7/8th grade about how all citizens had to take a test at a young age (13 or so), and if you did well the government removed them from society since they didn't want their subjects to be too smart. I can't remember the name but the story sure did stick. (I should note, this was not a public school, lol).

[VIDEODROME]

I'm having a hard time remembering liberty-oriented books that I read when I was a child. Ingalls Wilder books of course.

Some modern young adult books I've read as an adult are the Hunger Games books.

When I was a kid I mostly read horror stuff like Stephen King or some Ann Rice lol.

Or comic books and MAD Magazine.

[Carson]

When I was a kid I mostly read horror stuff like Stephen King or some Ann Rice lol.

Or comic books and MAD Magazine.

Mad Magazine was great reading back in the old days.

I remember on one back when they started infringing on peoples rights to sell working guns in magazine ads. Mad had an ad for a Luger without a firing pin. A couple of ads down on the same page was one for Luger firing pins.

Another one was one of those little drawing in the margins. It showed a street with pizza joints up and down the block. One big place had a sign out front,"Best Pizza in the Country!". Another even bigger place's sign said, "Best Pizza in the World!" Down at the end of the block was a little place with a long line leading in the door. It said, "Best Pizza on the block."

[Carson]

When I was a kid I mostly read horror stuff like Stephen King or some Ann Rice lol.

Or comic books and MAD Magazine.

Mad Magazine was great reading back in the old days.

I remember on one back when they started infringing on peoples rights to sell working guns in magazine ads. Mad had an ad for a Luger without a firing pin. A couple of ads down on the same page was one for Luger firing pins.

Another one was one of those little drawing in the margins. It showed a street with pizza joints up and down the block. One big place had a sign out front,"Best Pizza in the Country!". Another even bigger place's sign said, "Best Pizza in the World!" Down at the end of the block was a little place with a long line leading in the door. It said, "Best Pizza on the block."

[helmuth_hubener]

(I should note, this was not a public school, lol).

I did go to gov't school, and I was always surprised by how many books with strong pro-liberty themes were in the curriculum. 1984 and A Brave New World, for instance, were part of my high school curriculum, and I feel like of most high school curricula.

[Rothbardian Girl]

As an angst-ridden teen, the book that stuck with me most strongly had to be Demian, by Hermann Hesse. It's basically a coming-of-age story with strong anti-establishment/anti-authoritarian themes (the difference between living in a world of illusion and seeing the truth in things, which I feel is an appropriate metaphor for the general libertarian political outlook), and I have recommended it to a lot of my friends. It doesn't have quite the same impact on me now whenever I reread it, but I'd recommend it to a lot of intelligent teenagers. The book does contain a little Jungian kookiness (the author was undergoing psychotherapy when he wrote the book), and I still don't know what to make of some of those sections, but overall... yeah. One of my favorites.

A book that is actually similar to Demian for me (and easier to get through for me, at my --admittedly, still young!-- age) is The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton. It puts a romantic spin on the same "living in illusions versus living free" kind of theme. It's definitely a more chick-lit-y kind of book, but in a good way. Beautifully written; couldn't say enough great things about it.

I'd also echo the Ender's Game recommendation, just because it's a great book. It's been a long time since I've read it, but I just remember being caught up in the story without necessarily analyzing the crap out of it for any "libertarian themes," per se.

Finally, I have always enjoyed "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot, for the same reasons I enjoy both Demian and The Age of Innocence. I suppose I should find it odd that I enjoy works of literature about repression and failure to communicate so much, but I could really read this poem over and over again. Eventually you start to think that these people had so much insight into the crises of modern communication (and they do), but it just shows that humanity, as a whole, keeps getting stuck in the same old ruts.

I should probably add that most of the books (and poem) I've listed don't really make their political themes obvious, which is the best way to go, I think. I actually got bored reading 1984 and Animal Farm, because I felt like the metaphors were a little too obvious. Just a matter of personal preference, I guess.

[helmuth_hubener]

Demian, by Hermann Hesse.
The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton.
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot

Thank you so much for your contribution! I have not even so much as heard of any of the additions you have made to our list. You are broadening my horizons.

Keep the books coming!

[tangent4ronpaul]

Scouting for boys
Uncle Shelbies ABZ book (This is a subversive comic book for 8 year olds).
Steal this book
A boys book of... (Chemistry, electricity, etc) All about making carbon arc furnaces and pyrotechnics and things that stink and building your own toys, etc. You know, the kind of stuff that would make your average authoritarian control freak crap their pants...
Backyard ballistics - things that can get you arrested today: potato launchers, dry ice "bombs", etc...

-t

[quezkittel]

the giver, lois lowry. basically takes all the best anti-government dystopia big brother books and turns it into something for 5th graders

[helmuth_hubener]

The Girl Who Owned a City -- Fantastic, fantastic book. Fun premise, interesting plot, likeable characters. Good family values, good libertarian values. Just one sidenote I remember (not a main point of the book): it makes an interesting Hoppean point in a little story the girl tells, that a king need not necessarily be bad, as long as he doesn't have a forcibly-maintained monopoly. Anyway, I highly recommend this book. Too bad the author does not seem to have followed through with his plan for a sequel.

[helmuth_hubener]

Jonathon Gullible: A fun parody of the world, from the point of view of a shipwrecked boy on a strange island. Very libertarian. Has a focus on economic reasoning.

[helmuth_hubener]

Red Planet, by Robert Heinlein. Freedom themes everywhere. The Martian colonists are being abused and they're not gonna take it any more! A very interesting and entertaining plot, and very good characters. It's very exciting, and like most great books, you hate to have it end.

Buy the Del Ray edition, not the old original.

[tangent4ronpaul]

Help mom, there are liberals under my bed!
She did another one about Holllyweird.

-t