Choosing the Right Alien Invasion
This week I had separate parent-teacher conferences, which led to three separate warnings: “Now, the challenge with having a fourth grader who reads at high school level is choosing books with appropriate content. You can always ask me or librarians for help.” That made me smile three times. I appreciate their concern and their wise referral to librarians, but, you know, I think I got this one.
Maybe.
Two days after those meetings, I found myself laying on my sofa trying to steal a few minutes to read a book that wouldn’t let me go. One of my advanced readers was tucked into the other end of the couch with a book of his own. We got to chatting about our books and I explained that my book was troubling me. “I think it cheats sometimes. The main characters know stuff they can’t possibly know.” I explained to him about how, yes, readers choose to believe things like aliens coming to the earth, but that alien arrival must make sense within the fictional world that the author created. This writer seems to be cheating so that we readers will know some facts that’ll impress us about the alien invasion. I don’t like that, I explained, but I can’t stop reading because that same author keeps introducing new problems with just enough info to tease me so that I MUST know what happens next. A bit peeved and totally hooked at the same time!
This discussion was interrupted and I was called away, leaving my book on the couch. When I returned a half hour later, my son was many chapters into my book. Huh. Yet again I was troubled. See, he was intrigued by a book and getting as worked up with excitement as I’d been, which is good… but it’s a book for older teens and I hadn’t read enough to know if the content is within my realm of “appropriate” reading for my son. At that moment, I stepped away and didn’t interrupt him. He was due to leave for a play date shortly so I knew he wouldn’t get much deeper into the book.
Later than night, I read further. Well, lookie there — references to sex. Main Girl craving Hottie Boy. Oh, and lookie there — quite a few swear words. And of course there’s all the alien-human and human-alien killing. Huh. I know what I was reading when I was in fourth grade and it was *almost* adult stuff. I know for sure I read Gone with the Wind in fifth grade, and then I moved on to WWII spy thrillers (with assassins and other good stuff), and dramas like The Lords of Discipline and The Thorn Birds and then Holocaust literature by my tweens. I felt confident and comfortable with those books even though I was still young. But, there’s a lot of maturity difference between fourth and fifth grade. So my decision regarding this book, at this moment, is this: I’m going to return it to the library as soon as I’m done reading it but before he can realize it’s officially his turn. Out of sight, out of mind. If he asks for it, I’ll stall for a while. He’s in the middle of several long book series that aren’t in any “age appropriate” gray area. Those will keep him busy and happy for quite a while yet. The older teen alien invasion book isn’t going anywhere. He can get his alien fix now with Animorphs.
