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young readers how wide-ranging knowledge and forthright principle can collaborate to the advantage of the individual and the culture. That knowledge generally is of the broadest sort; it comes from all times, all places, and all peoples, enhancing the multi-cultural, independent world that is to come. But, significantly, welding it into a living and functional entity is a unifying socio-intellectual principle, deriving from the continuing American tradition and reinforced by the characters' knowledge of the nation's history and heritage. As the characters combine their fundamental Americanism with the evolving society of the future, they demonstrate for all to see how inevitable change may be transformed into genuine and truly democratic progress. Broadly informed and at home with a range of world knowledge, culturally literate in the very best sense of the term, Heinlein's young protagonists are, indeed, the citizens who will shape the imaginary worlds that they inhabit. If they succeed in communicating the importance of a corresponding and equally vital cultural literacy to the young readers of the American present, they will have more than justified Heinlein's efforts. |
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Fred Erisman, "Robert Heinlein, the Scribner Juveniles, and Cultural Literacy," Extrapolation 32, No. 1 (Spring 1991): 4545, 5152 |
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The Discovery of the Future. 1941. |
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Rocket Ship Galileo. 1947. |
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Space Cadet. 1948. |
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Beyond This Horizon. 1948. |
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Sixth Column: A Science Fiction Novel of a Strange Intrigue (The Day After Tomorrow). 1949. |
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Red Planet: A Colonial Boy on Mars. 1949, 1990. |
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The Man Who Sold the Moon: Harriman and the Escape from Earth to the Moon! 1950. |
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Farmer in the Sky. 1950. |
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Waldo and Magic Inc. 1950. |
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Universe. 1951, 1963 (as Orphans of the Sky). |
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The Green Hills of Earth: Rhysling and the Adventure of the Entire Solar System! 1951. |
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