I think there are several different things going on here and some posts are making assumptions which may be correct but which aren't correctly based on things in the OP. My opinions:
- Is it OK that some 9yos aren't allowed by their parents to read Hunger Games? IMO yes, absolutely. I also don't think there's a simple relationship with giftedness here - we've had threads before from people who need to shield their gifted children more than is age typical due to emotional OE. Come to that, I haven't read HG and have no plans to, call it my own EOE!
- Is it OK for the teacher to ask someone not to talk about it in the classroom? IMO yes. It's really her call, but I would be very surprised if she were not also stopping children talking about violent video games in the classroom.
Some posters have assumed that this is the situation, but the OP just said he'd been asked not to talk about it. So
- Is it OK for the teacher to ask someone not to talk about it at all? IMO this is dubious and interesting. As a ban, I think it's pragmatically foolish, because it's impractical to enforce restrictions on what children can talk about on the playground. I would certainly expect any parent who asked for playground talk to be restricted to be told that it's impractical. If such restrictions were to be enforced, talk about unsuitable books wouldn't be high on my list of things to restrict - I'd suggest completely eliminating all homophobic and sexist language in the playground first, for example... OTOH, I would have absolutely no problem with the teacher pointing out to someone that the book he's very enthusiastic about is something that some children his age would find very upsetting, and asking him to be sensitive in how he talks about it and to whom.
THIS! And I also think that it might be a better approach to discuss with him WHY it might not be a good idea to discuss the book with other kids his age. If he is mature enough to comprehend the themes of the Hunger Games, then it seems likely that he would be able to understand the need for some discretion.
And FWIW, I would likely not let my DS8 read the book (even though he is academically capable) because, like ColinsMom said, he can be very sensitive to stories of the mistreatment of children so I know it would be upsetting for him. And I also don't allow anything but E/E-10 rated video games right now. So far they are perfectly satisfied with Lego games and sports games, thank goodness!
