The Hunger Games

Every now and then we get a surprise in Argentina... Last night Ellie (12 years old) went to the movies to see The Hunger Games. But they wouldn't let them in without showing their documents. The movie has a minimum age of 13 years- but we have never heard of them checking here in Argentina for ages! This was a first. In the end she saw Mirror Mirror.

Ellie has read the first two Hunger Games books. We got started on them a few weeks ago when Lachlan saw the movie with his friends. We then downloaded the books onto our kindle (thanks friends at Gladesville!). I hogged the kindle while we were away over Easter and read all 3 books.

Anyone read them? What are your thoughts? I enjoyed them, though they are fairly disturbing. I wouldn't recommend them for anyone younger than 12, and I'm still not 100% sure for a 12 year old. There are some interesting themes to discuss with the kids, especially about what is 'entertainment' and the need we have to be entertained, and it seems with an increasing level of violence (the people living in the Capitol delight themselves in watching teenagers from other districts kill each other in the arena). But is the book itself feeding into the very thing it is making comment on? That is, that teenagers need the level of violence of The Hunger Games in order to stay interested in reading?