Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Because I said I would...

here is day 2 of my 30 day blog a day goal.

I made the big mistake of starting  Catching Fire last night--the second Hunger Games book, if you happen to have just landed on planet earth.

So now I need to pack and get ready for school, but also fight the urge to sit in my reading chair with snacks and just blast through that thing.

I always say that I'm not a big fan of the teen dystopias that seem to be all the rage, but that's not really the truth. I try to keep abreast of "what the kids are reading" these days, and I'll admit that the dystopian selections are super engaging. Hunger Games, Uglies, Unwound, Ship Breaker, and Matched all are pretty tough to put down once started. But they're no good for my apocolyptophobia, (I hope I just made that word up.) and like many others, I can't help but wonder why this particular genre seems to resonate so deeply with kids right now.

Soph is going to be spending most of the day with her great-grandma Gene, and I hope to bust ass and get some work done--both at home and at school.

Today's best thing about being a mom: Going for walks together--and stopping to sit under a shady tree and eat apples.

Today's worst thing about being a mom: Brushing her hair. As an almost 9 year old (!!) she should be doing this by herself, but her hair so thick and prone to tangles, that ain't going to happen anytime soon.

4 comments:

amandak said...

Madeline just blasted through Matched, and is looking for more along those lines. She also loved Uglies. Are any of those others you mentioned particularly inappropriate for 12 year olds? I'm loosening up my ideas of what's appropriate, but we're still trying to keep away from anything too graphic. I think I'm going to try to find Hunger Games (for me) at the library, as I am apparently way behind the ball in getting to that one.

Mark said...

I haven't read Ship Breaker, but his "grown-up" novel The Windup Girl still haunts me a year later with its view of the future of agriculture and energy.

NME said...

I blew threw Hunger Games trilogy in no time and enjoyed Matched on audiobook. Uglies? Dont know it. Good?

Missuz J said...

@amanda: I hesitate to recommend any of them really--only because in my head, Madeline is a little girl. But really, she's not. So definitely not Unwound. Super disturbing premise. HG is also very intense--you read it and see. Ship Breaker and Uglies could be a starting place.

@NME: Uglies is quite good good. It's the first in a quartet of books (I think.) and/but I didn't like the second one (Pretties) enough to go on to the third.