How Some Juvenile Fiction Got Written

Perhaps there are two kinds of writers of juvenile fiction? -

those who write juvenile fiction exclusively;

those who primarily write adult fiction and whose juvenile fiction is connected to their adult fiction.

I am primarily concerned with Poul Anderson but some other writers parallel Anderson in this respect.

Before World War II, CS Lewis wrote Volume I of his adult sf trilogy. During the War, Lewis wrote Volume II of that trilogy and Volume I of his juvenile fantasy series. Thus, both Ransom, Volume II, and Narnia, Volume I, begin during the blitz - then go elsewhere. They are exact parallels: other planets accessed by space travel, other worlds accessed by magic etc. The Horse And His Boy is very "Heinleinian" - the boy hero/lost prince meets a Talking Horse in an exotic setting and they embark on a dangerous journey.

Five early Scribner Juvenile novels by Robert Heinlein share a background with each other and with the "Green Hills of Earth" period of Heinlein's Future History. One of these Juveniles even references "The Green Hills of Earth."

Isaac Asimov's Lucky Starr juvenile series begins with a background similar to that of his Galactic Empire novels, then inconsistently changes its background to that of Asimov's Robot novels. There are even robots. A later series co-written by Janet Asimov and addressing an even younger audience features a robot.

James Blish set one juvenile novel in his Okie series and three in two different branches of his Haertel Scholium. One has the young Adolph Haertel as its hero.

When we first meet them, Poul Anderson's David Falkayn is seventeen and his Dominic Flandry is nineteen. Thus, they are then juvenile heroes. In Anderson's Technic History, four juvenile stories spin off from Falkayn:

Falkayn's team member, Adzel, when a student, is a friend of the juvenile hero and narrator of "How To Be Ethnic In One Easy Lesson";

the young hero of "The Season of Forgiveness" adventures on the planet where we first saw Falkayn;

two juvenile stories are set in the colony founded by Falkayn, the first featuring Falkayn's grandson.

Finally, there is a juvenile installment in Anderson's Time Patrol series.

And I did not expect to complete that post at this time of night. Persevere.