Have you ever noticed how many stories of a dystopian future seem to center on kids?
I guess I get the urge. Kids are a symbol of innocence and purity, so showing how a dystopia affects them can be a powerful way to show just how screwed up things have gotten. But it's starting to get on my nerves a little - not in the sense of me not liking the stories, but me getting to the part where our protags are kids or perhaps teens and thinking to myself "again?"
It's a little bothersome, because one of my favorite books, "The Long Walk" is pretty much entirely made up of kids' place in a dystopia. I'm also a pretty big fan of "Battle Royale" and for book club right now we're reading "The Darkest Minds." I'm enjoying it, but I can't stop thinking about how specifically so many of them focus on kids.
This is part of why I have yet to read the Hunger Games books. I know a great many people who have read them and enjoyed them deeply and have told me that I NEED to read them, or at least the first one. And I suspect they're right. they sound like good books and I would probably enjoy reading them. But this trope is just a little too... centered, maybe, right now.
Maybe I'll give it a little time and put a no-kid-centered-dystopias rule on my book selections for a while and then see how I feel about it. :)
This week was the library book sale. I was both grateful and sad that I didn't find more to purchase while I was ther, because while I don't need more physical books trying to find space on my shelves, I like books and I like supporting the library. But now I am the proud owner of "I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings" and four of the first five volumes of "Pluto" because I am a total mark for anything with Tezuka's name on it other than Kimba and Astro Boy (and who knows, maybe eventually those too!"
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