Hmm reording in my preference
Have Space Suit—Will Travel (1958)
Citizen of the Galaxy (1957)
Starman Jones (1953)
Time for the Stars (1956)
Farmer in the Sky (1950)
Tunnel in the Sky (1955)
The Rolling Stones (1952)
The Star Beast (1954)
Space Cadet (1948)
Rocket Ship Galileo (1947)
Between Planets (1951)
Red Planet (1949)
And yes Space Nazis is silly NOW but it was written in 1947 and so is a reasonable period thing. That said it still is a bit of a loser as a story:-) . Have Space Suit is clearly the best of the best. I read both Between Planets and Red Planet, but other than the Venusian Isaac Newton I remember little. For a Heinlein piece of writing that tells me it was unremarkable (although likely superior to many “Hugo” award winners since the early 2000’s)
As to Starship Troopers that is a special case and I need to recuse myself from that judgement. You see it was the first Heinlein I read when I purchased it for 75 cents at a book fair in 6th grade. So I did read it in the time period for a Juvenile. It certainly has many of the Heinlein juvenile tropes with a just out of teenage protagonist (The literary types if they deigned to read Heinlien might call it a Bildungsroman). There is NO sex and perhaps a little romantic/sexual tension.
One might argue that Starship Troopers being an intentional polemic to duty is of a larger import than the Juveniles, and yet Have Space Suit deals with the complexities of who rules and how they rule with Three Galaxies, Citizen of the Galaxy takes on slavery and the fact of people ignoring it for their own profit, Starman Jones deals with the issues of having cheated to break out of an unfair system and the consequences (admittedlythey DO get Deus ex Machinaed out of the way), I can’t say I wouldn’t give Starship Troopers to a young person (Having myself benifitted from it although the powered armor was more of interest than the politics to a 6th grader). And it sits closer to the Juveniles in style and feel than either Stranger in a Strange land or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. If I must put it in the Juveniles it goes before Have Space Suit. But as I noted I am biased and one never forgets their first love.
As a separate issue should Podkayne of Mars be in this list. It is an oddball (and not published for the same publisher) but yet other than a female protagonist it certainly fits the mold as well as Starship Troopers.
I’ve been debating since this morning whether or not Podkayne of Mars belongs on the juvenile list.
You’ve convinced me – It does.
I would be interested to know what a group of young women sf readers thought of it.
Well I have two (now adult) daughters. Both read and enjoyed Have Spacesuit, Younger daughter tried Rolling Stones and ultimately found the info on orbits and suchlike a little too deep (David Weber was not the first to do information dumps 🙂 ) in 7th grade. I do not think I ever offered them Podkayne, that may be because I think my paperback went missing sometime in High School, likely I loaned it out and it never came back. Thus I sadly have nothing to report on that front.
Well, that’s considerable progress. I didn’t get any traction on Heinlein until my grandsons came along. The only SF&F I ever got Camera Girl to read was the Hobbit many, many years ago.
Thank you for publishing my comment!
Don’t mention it. I’m always looking for interesting content. The longer the better. It’s tough being a one man band. If you ever have anything you want to say send it along.