2008-08-15 Help your ten year old turn into the sort of adult you'd like them to be

Ignore the lurid cover - this is not empty sword and sorcery but a journey through key philosophical battlefronts that never interferes with a ripping good story for children.

Amazingly clever and beautifully written in economical prose - it's only years later that most children realize how unique Le Guin's books are in forming their ideas about the world.

How powerful is language? What could be the dark side of the promise of afterlife? What are the risks of demonstrating adolescent prowess?

The polar opposite to the CS Lewis Narnia stories, this is cold water poured on the Sunday school campfire.

See if you can spot the subsequent imitators like JK Rowling.