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In 2001 I was a panelist on two different discussions concerning children's science fiction and fantasy, one in the U.S., and one in the U.K. I also sat in the audience at the World Science Fiction Convention in Philadelphia while three publishers discussed the possibility of launching new young adult science fiction lines. A number of issues emerged; we had difficulty recalling many science fiction titles. In the children's and young adult market, fantasy clearly predominated, not merely in the market, but among the accepted genre classics. The two names which occurred most frequently were Robert A. Heinlein and Andre Norton, but no contemporary science fiction writer producing SF for children has achieved the same stature, and no contemporary SF writer who wrote in both the adult and the children's market has been as successful in both. To put this in context, Heinlein and Norton were unusual in their day. Most of their contemporaries who wrote for children have disappeared from the bookshelves, and while we may reminisce, as a consideration of the authors and titles cited by Jessica Yates in her contribution to the International Companion Encyclopedia of Children's Literature (1996) indicates, most (Heinlein, Norton, and Alan E. Nourse may be the exceptions) are not a serious part of the genre canon, in the way in which many of their fantasy counterparts (Lloyd Alexander, Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, for example) are recognized.
Of the titles that were initially suggested as science fiction, too many when scrutinized turned out to be fantasy, or to focus on issues other than science, or social science, or in some other way to somehow not quite feel like science fiction. And there was a clear sense that the younger the child, the more restricted the choice, although fantasy for younger children is very common, and much of it extremely good. One possible reason which was posited were the cognitive requirements of science fiction. Was it possible to tell a tale to a small child which contained the cognitive dissonance-the knowledge that this is a "what if?"-which is considered essential to the genre? The idea that there might be a genre that relied for its authority on adulthood is intrinsically alien to the idea that writing for children should...