Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion The Color Purple for a 13 y/o?

DD, then 11, read both TKAM and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. She has read the rest of Ms. Angelou's autobiographical series, too. She has not read "Precious" which I feel is probably a little too much still.

She was pretty shocked at the Maya Angelou book, but took it in stride and we've never limited news and print media sources (though to be fair, we also never read pop stuff like People and Us weekly or anything... LOL. Cosmo? Isn't that the one by Carl Sagan? )...

so she's had a fair context in which to place this knowledge.

Only in the past year, at 12-13, has she been willing to push into more mature reading which contains more overt sexual themes and violence.

Personally, I like the idea of saving this kind of material for when a parent is around to answer questions/concerns as they arise.

My DD9 BEGGED me to read the Hunger Games (she was in a gr. 4/5 split at school and insisted that "everyone" had seen the movie). I finally agreed that she could read the book, but not see the movie. So far she's not shown any anxiety from the content. I read it as well so that I would know what she's reading, and we've talked about it. She wants to read the remaining two books in the trilogy (and so do I), so we're keeping our eyes out for them (so far I've only seen them in hard cover).

When DD9 and DS8 were younger I tried sheltering them from content - now I find it easier just to talk frankly about it. If they have questions, I want to be the one to answer them, not some random kid in the school yard.

At the moment they're watching "Jaws" with their Dad. We recently returned from a trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios, where they saw the fake shark, so they're getting a kick out of the movie (DS8 is asking a ton of questions though, lol)

Me too.

In fact I think there's an upside to exposing them to the older content: you can be the one to answer questions and guide how they're influenced by it. On the other hand if you shelter them for too long and they get their exposure in the school yard, etc., you lose your influence.