Why no Trek books for kids?!!!!

[EJA]

One thing that has me irked is when I go into a lot of sci-fi/book stores I see loads of books to do with Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Harry Potter, from storybooks, to annuals, to activity books (Heck, I've even seen some Indiana Jones and Narnia stuff) - but ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ON STAR TREK!!!!!! You'd think with the new blockbuster movie, there'd be a few stuff, at least a children's novelisation or an annual, SOMETHING!! But no, book publishers seem to have made a consious decision to totally ignore it. I can't help feeling that this is a terrible injustice.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

One thing that has me irked is when I go into a lot of sci-fi/book stores I see loads of books to do with Doctor Who, Star Wars, and Harry Potter, from storybooks, to annuals, to activity books (Heck, I've even seen some Indiana Jones and Narnia stuff) - but ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ON STAR TREK!!!!!! You'd think with the new blockbuster movie, there'd be a few stuff, at least a children's novelisation or an annual, SOMETHING!! But no, book publishers seem to have made a consious decision to totally ignore it. I can't help feeling that this is a terrible injustice.

I certainly understand your frustration, and I think it's a great shame, too, particularly because I believe Star Trek is a wonderful franchise to get children interested in. I came rather late to Star Trek myself- age 11 - but it's not an exaggeration to say it was the biggest influence on me from that point on. I owe the franchise a lot- it helped make me who I am. I assume you're talking about books for children younger than I was, however, as at that age I simply began reading the adult books. It would indeed be nice to see more Trek books/products aimed at children, but I don't think Trek appeals to most children the way Star Wars or Doctor Who does. I don't wish to in any way devalue these popular franchises or accuse them of being "for kids", but lightsabres flashing and Dalek's squarking "exterminate!" are, I think, more immediately appealing than Tuvok wielding a tricorder or Garak sewing pants, no matter how much the children would gain from reading about/watching Tuvok or Garak.

 

[Nardpuncher]

If this matters at all... I read my first Trek book when I was 12. Even the 'adult' ones are fit for someone about that age.

 

[Geoff]

While it's true that there are no NEW childrens books being produced under the Trek license, as many as 32 Young Adult novels were published in the late '90s:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek_novels#Young_Adult_books_.281993-1998.29

Check Amazon, your local used bookseller or the library.

 

[shanejayell]

I'm surprised they haven't been reprinted, at least.

Didn't sell too well?

 

[EJA]

I don't wish to in any way devalue these popular franchises or accuse them of being "for kids", but lightsabres flashing and Dalek's squarking "exterminate!" are, I think, more immediately appealing than Tuvok wielding a tricorder or Garak sewing pants, no matter how much the children would gain from reading about/watching Tuvok or Garak.

Star Trek has flashing phasers, starships zooming around the cosmos at warp speed, alien races and planets, scary villains such as the Klingons, Romulans and Borg, huge spacecraft firing photon torpedoes at one another, explosions, time travel, planets blowing up, and big monsters that try to eat people. I'd call all that pretty damn exciting enough for kids.

 

[nx1701g]

I'm surprised they haven't been reprinted, at least.

Didn't sell too well?

I don't think that they did too well for sales.

 

[Snaploud]

I loved many of the young adult books. It's too bad they were discontinued.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I assume you're talking about books for children younger than I was, however, as at that age I simply began reading the adult books. It would indeed be nice to see more Trek books/products aimed at children

Putting my teacher-librarian hat on here:

As children in the 60s, my brother and I both read his copy of "Star Trek: Mission to Horatius". We enjoyed it, and my brother's book secretly made its way into my growing ST collection in 1980, but the book's content wasn't anything Earth-shattering. At least not for us, although it may have piqued our curiosity for TAS when we found that in b/w on Saturday mornings in the 70s.

Having met many members of ST's "first fandom", those who were watching ST as kids and who also craved reading about ST were devouring the James Blish (TOS) and Alan Dean Foster (TAS) episode adaptations. The selection of ADF as writer of the 2009 ST novelization was met with much enthusiasm from those ST fans who'd learned to read with "ST Logs" 1-10.

Although I have the delightful "ST III Storybook" in my collection, and have bought additional copies for all three school libraries I have taught in over the years, it never gets borrowed. Likewise, child interest in the Pocket/Minstrel YA books for TNG, DS9 and VOY has been minimal compared to the war SW kids devour SW YA books.

If you look back at other seemingly YA ST books, they are also more appealing to adults (as collectibles) than to kids (as reading material). "ST II Biographies", the matching short story collections and choose-your-own-adventures for both ST II and ST III, the ST IV YA novel, the TNG movie YA adaptations... how many sold to/for kids, and how many went straight into adults' collections? Ditto the old TOS and TMP pop-up books, and Daniel Cohen's "The Monsters of Star Trek".

I do know some kids who collect "Star Wars" YA books, but (like "Goosebumps" books and "Ben-10" books), they collect them as they would gum cards, and they don't necessarily use the books as reading matter.

Both SW and ST can appeal to young kids, but the ones inspired by ST seem to have no problem becoming consumers of the regular ST novels, thus skipping the YA stage completely.

 

[JD]

I read and loved all of the YA books that came out during the '90s.

As for Trek vs. Wars when it comes to kids, I can see where Trek might not have as much appeal. It is certainly alot more serious, cerbral, and tends to deal with issues that kids might not be as interested in. I've loved Trek for pretty much my whole life (my parents started watching TNG when I was a baby, and I've never really lost interest), but I didn't really get understand what it was actually saying and dealing with until I was a bit older.

 

[Christopher]

I got into Trek when I was five years old, and I began reading Trek novels at seven, even though there were no YA books available. There was plenty of kid-oriented merchandise -- action figures, toy equipment and utility belts, jigsaw puzzles, lunchboxes, activity books, comics and records... even this. (Someone please Photoshop that onto Nimoy or Quinto...) And of course there was the animated series.

Of course, that was back in the days of TOS, when it had more energy, more action and color and flair. The modern shows were somewhat more sedate, not as kid-friendly. But whatever underlying messages ST has, whatever sophistication it has, there's no reason it can't also have enough adventure and action and fun and weirdness to engage children.

 

[Cicero]

I read and loved all of the YA books that came out during the '90s.

I stopped reading the series with Atlantis Station (the local library stopped buying them), but I enjoyed the early books in the series - Capture the Flag was particularly good, though the transporter-based game was more interesting than the alien storyline. I think I read the young adult books in parallel with the adult novels, which I may have started reading before the young adult series started (I'd certainly started reading them by the time Best Destiny was released; I was seven then).

Nonetheless, a series of young adult books (preferably focused on the new movie's timeline, or on the adventures of Spock Prime or Nero before the destruction of Romulus) would probably be helpful to sales of regular novels even only a few years down the road - and to franchise mindshare. On the other hand, maybe their sales would be prohibitively low.

 

[HIj'Qa]

I was in the grocery store and there was a shelf with Harry Potter and GI Joe coloring books and story adaptations for kids. There was nothing for Star Trek. I wonder if Pocket or whomever didn't want to go out on a limb on Star Trek's appeal to children.

I do wish the line of YA books had continued. I confess to being one of the adults who snatched them up for my collection. I would like something like Mosaic or Pathways for other characters, stories of their growing up and deciding to be Starfleet officers, written a little more mature than the YA line.

 

[donners22]

In Voyages of Imagination, one author notes that sales of the YA series "flatlined" as other genres (such as horror) took off, and noted that many younger readers were more than capable of reading the mainstream fiction.

I read Q-Squared at 11, and that was one of the more complex Trek books at that time.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I read Q-Squared at 11, and that was one of the more complex Trek books at that time.

In my first year of teaching (1981), one ten year old was reading the novelization of ST:TMP and I remember wondering if he understood or noticed the Kirk intro, with a reference to speculation that he and Spock were lovers, and to Sulu's physical reaction to Ilia's arrival on the bridge.

Another kid was reading "Jaws", which I knew also had some raunchy bits.

 

[EJA]

While I can understand that ST might not have quite the same amount of interest for kids as stuff like SW, I still reckon they could have at least put out an annual or a young adult adaptation.

 

[donners22]

I read Q-Squared at 11, and that was one of the more complex Trek books at that time.

In my first year of teaching (1981), one ten year old was reading the novelization of ST:TMP and I remember wondering if he understood or noticed the Kirk intro, with a reference to speculation that he and Spock were lovers, and to Sulu's physical reaction to Ilia's arrival on the bridge.

Another kid was reading "Jaws", which I knew also had some raunchy bits.

I read Jaws as a young child, too. There are indeed some fairly graphic sexual references in there; I understood some, didn't get others.

With today's young generation brought up with access to the Internet, I think they would know a fair bit more about such things than I did at the time...

From a recent browse at at my local library, even the junior books seem a fair bit more complex than they were in my day. Instead of just being fluffy fairytales and cute stories, they're teaching pre-teens about Islam, Asperger Syndrome, kids with two mummies and the like.

 

[Therin of Andor]

While I can understand that ST might not have quite the same amount of interest for kids as stuff like SW, I still reckon they could have at least put out an annual...

The past ST annuals you mention have only ever been UK reprints of ST comics (written for the regular collectors), with perhaps a bonus puzzle page and a boardgame. Apart from a kid-friendly cover, most of the content is aimed at the regular ST audience.

Since "Countdown" is already out as an omnibus collection, wouldn't this be the same function as an annual? In fact, Titan UK is already publishing repackaged reprint comics of IDW's JJ ST stuff.

In any case, annuals come out for Christmas gift-giving. The timing of the film didn't match up with a Christmas period. (A 2010 calendar for JJ's ST has been announced for September, IIRC.)

 

[TGTheodore]

While I can understand that ST might not have quite the same amount of interest for kids as stuff like SW, I still reckon they could have at least put out an annual or a young adult adaptation.

Well, the bottom line, especially these days, is business. While there are a lot of Trek tie-ins I'd like to see, Pocket just can't afford to publish to be "nice". If the buyers aren't there, there's no point producing work that doesn't sell.

--Ted

 

[Thrawn]

In Voyages of Imagination, one author notes that sales of the YA series "flatlined" as other genres (such as horror) took off, and noted that many younger readers were more than capable of reading the mainstream fiction.

I read Q-Squared at 11, and that was one of the more complex Trek books at that time.

I did, too, about the same time. I wonder if that's still true nowadays, though. Q-Squared was one of the most complex books at the time, but I don't think it'd hold a candle to, for instance, the Destiny Trilogy, or Terok Nor, or anything written by DRG3. I don't think I would've enjoyed Crucible or Twilight at *all* when I was 11.

In a weird sort of way, over the past decade or so, I've been feeling like Trek books have been growing up with me, becoming more complicated and intelligent and adult as I have. I still think Trek books are some of the easiest that I read, but way way harder than they used to be.