The Fault in our Stars- 11 year old.

[IsItMe789]

Hi

My daughter is 11 in two weeks time and has been nagging me to buy her the book- The Fault in our Stars. If you or your child have read it do you feel its suitable for an 11 year old? I have heard what happens in the end and I don't think thats really the problem. I am however a little concerned about the mild sex scene.

It doesn't help that her new secondary school has recommended it on the year 7 reading list.

Thanks

I never got a chance to say yes or no to twlight, DD2 just borrowed DD1's copies and read them very quickly (hence slipping into the last film a few weeks shirt of her 12th birthday).

Trash they may be, but they were the trash that got her back into reading after she out grew JW, Cassy Cassidy and the like.

I've just been chatting to DD1(16) and she agrees, like it or not being thrown in with all those people and different teachers mean you grow up a lot in Y7.

DD1 also has the prize for reading what you shouldn't having slipped Game of Thrones out the sixth form section aged 13/14 (she's a librarian)

(LOTF is my absolute pet hate, I wear glasses and have a overweight DSIS, it touched too many raw nerves)

I think it's quite impressive your DD1 was reading GofT at that age, it's a hard read. Also your DD2 is probably more grown up because of her sister. My DD is an only child so that makes a difference.

I'm sure my DD will be changing alot in the next fews months and all I can do is sit back and watch while coping with the attitude and mood swings. It's actually quite scary!

My DD read it at age 10. Has read it again at 11 and is looking forward to the film (for her 12th birthday!)

She didn't finish it, it got read my DH instead and it's him who owns the later ones

"I'm starting to think that shock tactics and grown up subjects are what are needed to keep kids interested/stimulated. "

One thing I have seen with dd is that there are massive online communities obsessing over series like the Hunger Games, HP, Twilight etc, endless fanfic etc etc (apparently everyone hates the Twilight fans ), I have made dd swear to stay off the 18 rated slash fanfic - we live in hope - but on the whole I think it's a great thing.

(Should point out that obviously at home / on phone we have the various controls, but once they get into secondary they have plenty of people they can access stuff through if they really want to!)

Elephants- at least she intended to. I brought it and read a few pages but that's it.

Takver- my daughters not really at that stage yet. Mainly just watches youtube vids, which I have to keep an eye on because of some of the nonsense on there. I'm sure I have it all to come though!

my 2p worth about kids/books and " censorship" .....

Whilst we have regulated the watching of films to reasonably close to the recommended age we have never done this with books. We have found that out bookworms at late primary age would read anything and everything BUT would self censor- if it was too heavy/adult they'd just move on to something else. I guess also the brain imagines stuff in line with experience /TV images so giving a current example " soldier shot dead in WW1 trenches" to a 9yr old means maybe an old bloke in khaki with a bullet hole through the centre of the forehead. To me it means a boy, like my son, screaming in pain, drowning in stinking mud, with his guts hanging out and a a limb missing.
I think this " filter" means books can be read at different " levels" too.

I certainly read all sorts of stuff at 10-11yrs from Swallows and amazons and clayhanger, to Dennis wheatley! ( there was nothing much else to do at grandmas).

The girls read a lot of Jodie Picault at 12-13 which I didn't think was entirely " suitable" but we had some good chats about saviour siblings and the like!

my 15yr old is heavily into fan fic now. Goodness knows what she reads!

Fan fiction can be...interesting!
She could be reading absolutely anything! :)

I know! I did tell her to avoid the rude bits and she just rolled her eyes and did the " muuuuuum " thing!

I agree with what you saying Theas18, it is completely different with books. I used to read alot of horror stories in my teenage years and I scared myself silly.

I have just googled fan fiction as I hadn't heard of it before. Now that is going to be very difficult to control. i just don't want my little girl to grow up.

I would let her, but be prepared for her to be upset and maybe want to discuss the issues. But, I say this as someone who was never restricted in my reading choices (my mum would let me read anything as long as I wasn't hiding it from her or it wasn't too ridiculous - she'd have drawn the line at 50 Shades) and I was mature at 11.

I think it's an upsetting story, but don't recall the sea being that graphic, and is also set up in a relationship situation so not completely inappropriate imo

Theas18 You explained that far better than I could have!!

According to my 13&16y DDs some fan fiction is very good, DD1 has been really enjoying someone's HP stuff, or very dodgy.

Sherlock for obvious reasons is the one she gave as an example.

DD2 writes a bit too (I'm certainly not reading it).

Ok, I brought the book earlier (as we agreed I would read it first) and read the first chapter. There were a few bits in it and I thought it will be too grown up. I also thought that once she had read a bit she would think it was too complicated and grown up so wouldn't bother, therefore I decided to let her read the first chapter as well because I didn't want to read the whole book and her not to be interested. (I've got a growing pile of books I want to read)

So far I am really surprised at her attitude and understanding, I feel I misjudged how grown up she is. The things I thought were too grown up she didn't even bat an eyelid at.

It's scary isn't it?

But then most of us forget there was no such thing as teen fiction when we were her age. We just read adult books of varying degrees of suitability.

You have just reminded me of the Point Horror series of books. The memories came flooding back.

I took DDs (just turned 11 at the time) to see the film. they told me lots of their friends had seen it and have been ok with other 12As. Also, a friend and a family member (both adults) have had cancer recently so they have some awareness/understanding of cancer. They were fine with that side of things although I did find the mild sex scenes were just a bit too grown up for them (we dealt with it by pretending to cover our eyes).
I might not have taken them had I researched properly in advance because of that, but in many ways I am glad we saw it. In particular, I liked that it was a film where the main characters were not Hollywood gorgeous, but had such great personalities that they really did come across as beautiful.

I would probably let them read the book now (suspect they would skip the sex scenes!)

I bet they don't, the sex scene in the man from saint Petersburg was my favourite bit.

"We just read adult books of varying degrees of suitability."

Or perhaps unsuitability . I don't think anything ever changes - my Mum remembers coming by a copy of Lady Chatterley & trying to find the rude bits . . .