Does "The Hunger Games" belong in a middle-school library?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not entirely clear on what Dune has to do with Stephen King.

YA is a made up category for US booksellers, seems kind of pointless to debate what does and doesn't qualify.

I think Hunger Games is a solid series.

I've never read Dune but I seem to remember it being more along the lines of what would be considered a pleasure read (like King books were pleasure reads). That doesn't mean that Dune isn't/wasn't a good story, it was just one that you read on your own time. It wasn't necessarily taught/discussed in an English class. But it's also not one that I would have necessarily been interested in as a teen, so it's possible that I simply chose another book to read, instead.

I agree with you 100% about the YA designation, btw. And I also agree that Hunger Games is a decent series.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To Kill A Mockinbird, Tolkien, the Diary of Anne Frank, and Lord of the Flies are YA books? How are you defining YA? "Books that teenagers may enjoy reading"?

Yes, they are considered Young Adult Fiction. Did you really not know this?

As far as I know a couple of them are required reading in schools.

YA books are books written or published with teenagers as the intended audience.

Did Harper Lee, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.D. Salinger, Douglas Adams, and William Golding publish their books for an audience of teenagers?

(Not to mention that, as a PP pointed out, the Diary of Anne Frank is actually the diary of Anne Frank.)

(Not to mention also that Catcher in the Rye is not, not, not great literature.)

Ahem. Scholars would disagree with you there. It's considered one of the best pieces of American literature ever. It was critically acclaimed.

[Anonymous]

I *love* Douglas Adams but I have no idea how or why his books would be considered "YA" or required reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

(Not to mention also that Catcher in the Rye is not, not, not great literature.)

Ahem. Scholars would disagree with you there. It's considered one of the best pieces of American literature ever. It was critically acclaimed.

Which scholars, specifically, consider Catcher in the Rye one of the best pieces of American literature ever?

I'm sure that it's a great book if you were a young, white, affluent, and (probably) male person who considered themselves a non-conformist above all of the shallow conventionality of society in the 1960s and 1970s. But its appeal is far from universal, it's awfully dated now, and Holden Caulfield is an entitled whiner.

[Anonymous]

Catcher in the Rye is unforgettable - if you read it, you will remember it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A dad here who hasn't read the book and doesn't anything about the story except it includes kids killing each other. Just learned it was in the library in our middle school. I don't know.

Read books WITH your kids.

I do.

Sometimes I'll read it after the fact, but we still have discussions on content.

You'd be surprised what goes over their heads. So while their reading level may be advanced, for example, their maturity level doesn't match it.

[Anonymous]

TKAM is very advanced on many, many levels, and subject matter will go over a young person's head.

The point of view is actually quite complex, as it allows readers to analyze the characters and events on several levels. Few middle schoolers or high school freshmen (when the book is normally taught) understand all of the nuances on their own.

Have your pre-teen/teen kid read the first few pages of TKAM when the social context is addressed. Many, many points will go over his/her head.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To Kill A Mockinbird, Tolkien, the Diary of Anne Frank, and Lord of the Flies are YA books? How are you defining YA? "Books that teenagers may enjoy reading"?

My son read the Tolkein books, on his own w/o my prodding before the 7th grade and during middle school he has read Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird. He would have read the Diary of Anne Frank in 7th grade when they touched on WWII in school but he was too busy reading other WWII related books.

That doesn't mean that kids can't read those books in later grades or other books entirely, it just means that my kid read those particular books before/during middle school.

Yes. Teenagers can read these books. That doesn't make them YA books.

Well, o.k. But middle school kids have been reading classics like The Outsiders, To Kill a Mockingbird, the Diary of Anne Frank for decades. And there is a reason for that - those particular classics are usually right at a middle school kid's interest level. That doesn't mean that the kid can't read the book well before middle school or well after middle school. It just means that the impact of the story will be best felt in/around middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Catcher in the Rye is unforgettable - if you read it, you will remember it.

I beg to differ. All I remember was that it was tiresome.

Now, the Plague -- also read in school. Absolutely loved that. Even the parts about squishing dead rats.

[Anonymous]

Re Anne Frank.

The edited version, edited by her father for a number of reasons, some of which simply reflect the sensibilities of the times. Definitely accesible to Young Aduls.

The unedited version: Anne viewed herself as a writer, a memoirist, rather than simply as a teen with a journal. This gets pretty mature sexually, and I can certainly see parents thinking there might be content that their younger tween may not be ready to read. I was an advanced reader, and read all sorts of things that were inappropriate for my level of maturity. Most just went over my head, but some of it I would have been better off reading with a parent guide.

[Anonymous]

My mom took the attitude that she shouldn't limit what I could read, but she limited what I could watch. Her reasoning was that my imagination could only build up things from personal experience, and reading about a sex scene was a completely different experience for a 8-10 year old than watching a sex scene. She also thought it was a more controlled way to explore difficult themes like violence. I was a pretty precocious reader, and I read all kinds of books with mature themes from a young age, however I wasn't allowed to watch PG-13 movies until I was 13.

Catcher in the Rye has a scene with a prostitute, and To Kill a Mockingbird has a heavy plot point about rape, so these are not exactly gentle themes for young adults. I think it's completely appropriate for middle schoolers to read those books, but don't kid yourself that these are so much better than Hunger games in appropriateness just because they are classics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom took the attitude that she shouldn't limit what I could read, but she limited what I could watch. Her reasoning was that my imagination could only build up things from personal experience, and reading about a sex scene was a completely different experience for a 8-10 year old than watching a sex scene. She also thought it was a more controlled way to explore difficult themes like violence. I was a pretty precocious reader, and I read all kinds of books with mature themes from a young age, however I wasn't allowed to watch PG-13 movies until I was 13.

Catcher in the Rye has a scene with a prostitute, and To Kill a Mockingbird has a heavy plot point about rape, so these are not exactly gentle themes for young adults. I think it's completely appropriate for middle schoolers to read those books, but don't kid yourself that these are so much better than Hunger games in appropriateness just because they are classics.

I actually felt that my son was a bit too immature for To Kill a Mockingbird at the beginning of 7th grade (content wise not reading level wise). But by the end of 7th grade he seemed like he had matured enough to handle TKAM as a summer read. I did not read it with him but we did talk about the book and I gave him some literary analysis to read along with some questions to think about. And judging from his answers, I do feel that he got a lot out of the story, I was really proud of him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Re Anne Frank.

The edited version, edited by her father for a number of reasons, some of which simply reflect the sensibilities of the times. Definitely accesible to Young Aduls.

The unedited version: Anne viewed herself as a writer, a memoirist, rather than simply as a teen with a journal. This gets pretty mature sexually, and I can certainly see parents thinking there might be content that their younger tween may not be ready to read. I was an advanced reader, and read all sorts of things that were inappropriate for my level of maturity. Most just went over my head, but some of it I would have been better off reading with a parent guide.

I have no interest in reading the unedited version of Anne's diary. I bought the edited version and that is the one that my kids will read.