I walked into our family room last week and caught my son thirty pages into my copy of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games. My first reaction was... whoa, that's not appropriate reading material for and almost-11 yr old. But I didn't snatch it away, figuring that he'd get lost and lose interest before any of the heavy stuff happens.
Wrong.
Guess he's more like his mother than I thought, and five days later he's asking me for the next book in the series, Catching Fire.
I think I'm supposed to have The Talk with him regarding some of the heavier issues in the book (no, there's no sex, but there are kids killing kids, encouraged by the adult populous), but
A) I'm not sure he really understood the moral implications and by bringing them up I might be stirring something that hasn't occured to him, and
B) I have no idea how to approach/handle this!
Any advice?
Also - I haven't read Catching Fire or Mockinjay yet. If he's already read the first book, is there any harm in giving him the others?
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2 comments:
I haven't read the book, so it's hard for me to offer specific advice, but...I think it depends very much on your son! My oldest could have easily handled such topics at 11. My youngest...I would have been concerned. Perhaps it would be a good idea just to ask him how he felt about the book. What HE thought it was about, and if anything in it disturbed him...and why. That should give you a good idea as to whether he's ready for more...or not.
BTW...I'm wondering about your time machine! How did you jump ahead 5 days?! lol
Nikki! Well clearly, I can bend time ;)
I have NO idea why Blogger let go up when I clearly scheduled it for the weekend. Grrr. Oh well.
Thanks for your 2 cents. I'm going to do just that -- ask him about it.
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