DS is in Y2. Yesterday he came home with a reading book that featured round a maybe 9 year old boy and his relationship with his great grandmother. One day the boy goes round to great-grandma's house, can't get in and gets worried. He goes to tell his grandfather, who lets himself in with the spare key, and then comes out and tells the boy that great grandma has taken ill and he should go and call an ambulance. Boy goes and calls an ambulance, then goes back to the house. Grandfather tells him to go home and tell his mum. The chapter ends with the boy runnning home, wishing that he'd had a chance to say goodbye to great-grandma and wondering if he will ever see her again. At this point DS said "I think Great Grandma has died".
That was as far as I got with DS, but I skim read ahead because I wanted to be forewarned as to what had happened to great-grandma.
Great-grandma has had a stroke and comes home from hospital in feeble health and extremely confused. In particular she thinks her great-grandson is her younger brother and keeps talking about things from the past that no one understands. With the help of the neighbour's cat, Great-grandson finds some old newspaper clippings that shed some light on what happends to younger brother and what great-grandma is going on about.
Sorry for long message but wanted to give you an idea of the full story. DS picked the book (they choose their own books from appropriate level box) because he liked the title and the picture of the cat on the front. Both are fairly incidental to the plot.
So my question is, I think the topics covered in the story are inappropriate for a Y2 child(and DS is a "young" Y2 at that)? Would you agree or am I just being PFB? At the very least I would have liked the book to come with a "warning" rather than being plunged straight into doom and gloom. Comments?