Today, July 7, is the birthday of Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988). He was one of the most influential science fiction writers of the previous century.

It’s become fashionable to hate on Heinlein these days. Many of his ideas aren’t currently in vogue, and he’s been called “racist as f***.”

I don’t agree with all of the positions he held, and there are some of his works I haven’t liked and one or two I’ve detested. But for the most part, I really got into his stuff. I certainly don’t agree with some of his critics.

I first came across his juvenile novels in the library of Zundy Junior High (short for Zundelowitz) in Wichita Falls. Have Space Suit, Will Travel was the first I read. The title was a play on the name of a western TV series that was popular at the time the book was written. The book made an indelible impression on me. The father of the central character, a high school student who is something of a slacker, changes his schedule so that he is taking a rigorous slate of classes. This proves to be quite helpful to the student before the book is over. If my memory is accurate, this book was also where I first encountered the question “How do you ever expect to face a firing squad calmly if _______ upsets you?” This is something I have started asking my own students.

I read about half of the Heinlein juveniles before I moved on to more adult oriented fare by both Heinlein and other authors. Some years ago I had the idea of rereading the juveniles in the order they were written and blogging about them. I got the first one done and then life interrupted.

I’ve had an itch to read Heinlein for months now, and even managed to work some short fiction in. I’m still wanting to read more. So I’m going to try to restart the juveniles project. Before I was going to read one a month. (What was I thinking?) That was a little ambitious, which is part of the reason the project fell by the wayside. This will be a little more relaxed, so hopefully I’ll make more progress.