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I-bounty-hunt-the-elderly wrote:Not to spoil your fun or anything, but a 12 year old should be capable of reading such books by himself. Maybe you should read slightly more advanced books to him? Something like Edgar Rice Burroughs, H Rider Haggard, John Steinbeck, Ian Fleming or a lot of others, is the kind of thing that would make a perfectly good father son activity, but your kid might have a hard time getting into himself. I mean, of all the things to encourage a kid to read . . . I've read some of the books recommended here, some of them are fine of their type - but they're time-fillers, that's all. Spend your time getting the sprog to read something which is a little bit thought-provoking or informative, not only mindless action/fun.

Just my input, sorry if that sounded really condescending.

Not condescending at all. It's not that he can't read the books, although they on average are over a 5th grade reading level regardless of what people here say... but that's moot.

It's more in an effort to try to get him into the hobby on some level in a fun way. To him the marines are little toys, and I'd like him to know more of the story and I'd like to hang out with him some too.

Woah, woah ...

There are HUNDREDS of sci-fi genre works of great literature that will actively improve your kid's brainpower and intelligence to read ... yet will still keep him interested in or satisfy his interest in shpashe marinesh.

Why don't you start him off with a lifetime's-worth of actually enriching genre material before you chuck his brain not only into the morass of Black Library authors, but the "clean" ones (which means: not Dan Abnett, who is probably the closest to not functionally slowed).

Mechanicum. He will enjoy Titan fights.

MVBrandt wrote:Woah, woah ...

There are HUNDREDS of sci-fi genre works of great literature that will actively improve your kid's brainpower and intelligence to read ... yet will still keep him interested in or satisfy his interest in shpashe marinesh.

Why don't you start him off with a lifetime's-worth of actually enriching genre material before you chuck his brain not only into the morass of Black Library authors, but the "clean" ones (which means: not Dan Abnett, who is probably the closest to not functionally slowed).

If you read my posts you would know that the point isn't to get him to read. It's to get him into the hobby's background. I'm not looking for a literary masterpiece or for something to edify my son's soul and start him on a lifetime of harmony, peace and a smaller carbon footprint.

I'm looking for some fun, violent and action packed 40k pulp fiction that will get him into the story, and won't get the kabosh from mom. Something that's too OTT with Chaos will definitely get shut down in my house. Maybe the descriptions of Chaos in "Fulgrim", "Storm of Iron" and "Dead Sky, Black Sun" are acceptable kids reading in 90% of the other Dakkaites houses, but it wouldn't be in mine and for the same reasons why I don't have a Slanesh army with lots of little hottie Daemonettes. I want to choose my battles - and there's plenty of great stuff that we can read together and won't rock the household boat.

Cheers!




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phantommaster wrote:Mechanicum. He will enjoy Titan fights.

Good tip! Noted and thanks.

Well then, just get him one of those anthologies that's all short stories of space marines fighting X opponents. No adult themes (and if any of the stories involve the darker chaos bits, you can skip them) and I imagine it would be more practical to read to someone in short, easily-seperated segments.