It's Never Too Early to Introduce Your Children to Science Fiction

I found this excellent book at the library the other day.

Space Case by Edward Marshall, with pictures by James Marshall

Mostly I only get my son board books, since it's too easy for him to tear paper pages (in fact, he currently lacks the manual dexterity to turn paper pages without skipping a ton) but when I saw the title and cover, I couldn't resist.

It's a very fun story about a space alien who comes to Earth, discovers Halloween, makes a friend and follows his friend to school.  It has no real science of course--but that's part of its charm.  I cracked up at the line "After studying the dictionary, the thing found it easier to communicate."  And I love this page:

In case you can't read the narrative, it says "[It came] to meet the natives, who were not especially friendly."  The picture, and the implications that go along with space-alien-lore and cows was funny to me.

I definitely recommend this book to parents of young children, since it's a fun, silly little story.  It even has a tiny bit of a lesson in acceptance.

This is not my first attempt to indoctrinate my son into liking science fiction.  He has two Star Trek bibs:  one says "Jean-Luc's my hero," and the other has a picture of a baby Vulcan and says "Mind meld This."  He also had a onesie that said "Future Trekkie," which he has long since outgrown.  Here are some pictures I took of him last May, on the day the most recent Star Trek movie came out

I just love scifi, and I'm working to keep it going into the Next Generation!