Reading this article made me impulsively buy the book again, except this time for Kindle (hard to pass up for $4). I think the last time I read it was as a young adult. Reading it now, it's still as gripping, but I wonder how much of our ageism - particularly in the tech industry - has to do with reading young-adult books not only in which the hero is very young, but that the ability to be "The One" is detected at an early age and in which anyone even in their teens is already past their prime (same goes for Star Wars)?

I say "tech industry" because many of us grew up loving sci-fi books more than the average kid. It's no fault of the authors, because of course to be appealing to young adults, the young adults have to be the saviors.