Youth by Isaac Asimov

This month, I read Youth by Isaac Asimov. The main characters in Youth are two boys known as Slim and Red. Red lives at his father’s estate in the country and Slim is visiting them along with his father, the astronomer. Red and Slim quickly become good friends and one day, Red shows Slim two small, strange animals he found. These animals are unique and look nothing like anything seen on the planet before. Red’s goal is to use them to get into his dream job of working at the circus, so Red and Slim take care of them together. They keep the animals in a cage, observe them, and make sure they have food to eat. Meanwhile, back at the house, Red’s dad and Slim’s dad have many conversations about the youth, the progression of society, and aliens on other planets. Slim’s father, an accomplished astronomer, made contact with aliens and the purpose of his visit was to meet the aliens and convince Red’s dad to trade with them. The third perspective of the story is the perspective of the aliens, “the explorer” and “the merchant”, as they go on their journey through space.

I really liked being able to get all three perspectives in the story. Learning about what each character knew and didn’t know helped me have a better picture of the events. In addition, learning about the ways each character viewed the events helped me learn about their personality. For example, the ways in which each father reacted to Slim entering the dining room late showed me what they thought about children and how strictly they should be treated. 

I also learned more about the characters through the fact that the characters were not referred to by their real names. Slim and Red were nicknames and Slim’s father was referred to as “the astronomer” and Red’s father was referred to as the “the industrialist”. Referring to each character by a description of them also helped me understand the character and their role in the story. 

Still, even though I had a pretty good understanding of the characters and plot, there were not a lot of details and there was a lot that I could interpret in my own way. For example, the book talked a lot about beforethewars, a time before nuclear war where society changed more  and everyone was more creative. While it did explain this concept, it did not fill in all the details about what happened after beforethewars and the details of the nuclear wars. All that was something I could imagine. I really enjoyed getting to do this.

Overall, I really liked this story. It was different from stories I have read before and I thought the plot and setting were really interesting. I would definitely recommend it, especially if you like science fiction stories.

-Maya