Age Appropriate Geekiness

NHL is a budding geek.  I’m sure of it.  He loves superheroes and playing video games.  He also likes reading.  Although sometimes the prospect of starting a new book seems to overwhelm him, once he’s into a book, he will pour through it until he’s finished with it.

I decided that he was old enough to be introduced to some of the science fiction that I loved growing up.  So I found my old copy of Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot.  I figured this would be good since it is just a collection of short stories.  We could read them together and go story by story.  NHL liked it, but didn’t want to continue after the second story.  I think they were too slow and cerebral for his taste.  So I’m on the search for other science fiction and/or fantasy books that would be more his speed.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been thinking about some of the classic movies that I grew up on that he would enjoy.  Back To The Future is definitely on the list.  I think he’d get a kick out of Marty McFly’s adventures through time.  I told him about the trilogy and semi-spoiled it by saying they go to the Old West in the third movie.  He suddenly got very interested.  (He did ask if they went back to the time of the Dinosaurs.  He seemed disappointed that Back To The Jurassic wasn’t one of the movies.)

Beetlejuice was on TV the other night and I loved seeing the Maitland’s try to cope with being dead, the new family in their house and "the ghost with the most" living in their model’s graveyard.  Part of me thought that NHL would like this movie, but then I saw the "gory/scary" parts.  They aren’t really bad.  Nothing approaching "horror movie" level, but just gory enough to scare NHL.  (He has this thing about blood.)  Perhaps in a few years, he’ll be able to handle it, but not now.

Of course, given his love of video games, I’m definitely going to take NHL to see the video game movie: Wreck-It Ralph.  He might not get all of the cameos (like Q-Bert), but this movie definitely looks like it has the right level of geekiness and age appropriateness.

 

What age appropriate geeky books/movies would you introduce to your child?