I admit that at times I’ve been lax with the books I lend to my students. I forget that being raised by hippies means I was allowed to read pretty much whatever I want whenever I wanted. On occasion I’ve had to deal with an angry parent who felt the subject matter of the book I lent out was too much (It’s almost always about sex.) Keep in mind these are all YA books. It’s just that some YA books are more appropriate for the 12-15 set and some are more appropriate for the 15 and up crowd.
I take full responsibility here and try to get a note from parents whenever kids pick up one of my books from the “special shelf”. But it’s hard to keep on top of it and frankly I get really excited whenever anyone shows excitement about reading. Reading can be a hard sell in the days of IM, video games, movies, and youtube.
So I find it interesting that the same parents who object to sexuality in their child’s reading material are fine with the contents of The Hunger Games. I have a number of 8th graders reading this book. I read it. It was a gripping page-turner. But it is violent and graphic and disturbing.
Sex, drugs, or violence? What would you let your 8th grader read?
Ideas In Things 