bgbarnes, I'm sorry my parenting choices are making you sick. I have twin 9 yo boys in 4th grade and even though a handful of their friends have read the Hunger Games, my husband and I have made the decision that we don't want them to read the book yet. Other children in their classes do talk about it and there's quite a bit of peer pressure for them to read it, so I wish their teachers would tell the other kids to cool it on the Hunger Games talk.
I don't think it's appropriate for my 9 year olds. It's not that my boys aren't voracious readers, or that they're not capable of understanding the concepts in the book or that they're not highly gifted, too. It's that they're only 9. I think they can worry about a fictional grim future where kids are forced to kill each other when they're a little older. That's my parenting choice, which I suppose you could call censorship. I also censor R- rated movies, and they seldom see PG-13 movies. But here's where I'm a hypocrite-- they do have some shoot 'em up video games. (I think games and books are different and therefore have different rules.)
I'm struggling to understand why you're so strident about criticizing my decisions for my sons. I ask that you take a step back and realize there are many ways to raise kind, ethical, happy, intelligent children.
