When Reading Induces a Panic Attack

I've had the same recurring dream since I was six or seven years old. The scene is the set of a television game show, where three pairs of contestants compete against each other in a combination of quick answers and physical feats. One pair is an engaged couple; another friends; the final a recently returned Vietnam Vet (in full uniform with a bandaged arm) and his mother. Mother and son reunite for the first time on the set, and it's quite emotional. After winning several rounds, their final challenge is Russian Roulette. One must pick up a handgun and shoot themself in the head, chancing that it's an empty round. The mother begs and pleads for the son to let her do it, that he has suffered and survived so much already, but the son simply picks up the gun and shoots. Other versions of this dream have the mother being forced to shoot the son. Regardless, the son always winds up with a lethal head wound, the mother always cries out an anguished scream, and I awake as his life is slowly fading away. *

Since our mother was a high school English teacher for much of my childhood, I was always privvy to what authors the older kids were reading in class. In elementary school, I thumbed through one anthology and came across Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery".  (Take five minutes to read it there, I'll wait.) The story freaked me out so much that I thought I'd throw up. A few years later, we read it in English class and I told my teacher that I could not, would not talk or write about the story. I can't remember the exact outcome there, but I think it involved taking a lower grade and doing at least one other assignment instead. (My ninth grade History teacher was much more understanding when we read and watched "Lord of the Flies". You can play a game here, but I'm too chicken.)

So, there you have it: I don't like stories where family members are pitted against each other in order to survive; I don't like survival stories where children discover their most primal instincts; and I really don't like reading of communities having annual events where they kill one of their own.

And, yet, I just read Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games".

Brendan talked up this young adult trilogy earlier this summer, and I've had it on my mental list of books to peruse before they hit my 9 year old daughter's reading radar. First off: I will only be checking these books out of the library, to reduce the chance that she will stumble upon them in the house. This is definitely middle school reading. I'm also both horrified and mesmerized at the thought of this book hitting the big screen. Really, you're going to make that a PG-13??

That is simply the story of teenagers, two each selected by lottery in each of the 12 districts of the former North America, who are forced to fight each other for survival...where only one will survive. While these teens (some not even, as they are as young as 12) fend on their own for food, shelter, and survival tools, the rest of their country watches the events unfold...televised. It's Survivor meets Big Brother meets...whatever crazy creepy show Mark Burnett thought of and dismissed as too barbaric. The plot of the first in the trilogy is the actual game, where we meet Katniss, a 16 year old from District 12 who has kept her mother and sister alive with her hunting and bartering skills for the last five years. Told from her perspective, we live the weeks of the game through her eyes, meeting her male counterpart from the District, Peeta, and the other competitors. Even though I knew she would eventually win (there are, after all, two more books), I turned every page, expecting it to be Katniss' last. Collins has written a book that not only captivates, but makes the reader question with every page, "Would I make it past the first minute of the game?". The themes in this book about community, governance, survival alliances, and civil disobedience make this a possible book to share and discuss with even the most reluctant middle school readers.

Library opens at 2 today...I think I'll find the second book of the series upstairs on the second floor.


* If you think this an odd dream for such a young kid to have, I always did too...until, in my 20s, I saw an old rerun of Saturday Night Live with this skit. When my parents used to have friends over, I was given permission to watch television in their bedroom (this was in the pre-cable era, where our antenna limited us to four or five stations; the most illicit stuff I'd find was Dynasty). Usually, I'd fall asleep and wake up in the middle of a new show (hence, SNL)...or when the station would show the flag and sign off for the night, waking me with the sudden burst of static. In any event, I must have groggily watched the skit, then fallen back to sleep. My subconscious took some liberties with the skit over the decades, but the pieces are essentially the same.