Current Read

 I've been cruising through books lately. Stories. Mindless fiction for young and old. Okay, not all mindless. The Templar Legacy has quite a bit of history and theology woven through it, enough to keep my mind sorting fact from fiction and putting long forgotten learning into action.

The Templar Legacy, Steve Berry












Graceling, Kristin Cashore 











Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins 
I picked up this one because the girls are reading it and because the movie is coming out and they want to see it. If it weren't for that, I likely would have put it down after the first chapter and, admittedly, I've relished in sharing something like this with the girls. But I digress. Back to the book. The concept itself - children killing children for sport, coliseum style - just didn't, no, doesn't sit right with me. Scary stuff. I read each page bracing for the horror of that to erupt. But it didn't. Not really. See, it's not gory and they did such a good job of telling the story and creating the characters that one almost becomes desensitized to the actual concept behind it all. Maybe that's what does it. I wonder if that's how it was in the coliseum. Create enough of an air of celebration, fun and frenzy around it that the observer forgets what's really going on. It becomes sport. The stuff of fiction. Entertainment. And so this is what I'm thinking about thanks to a kids' book. That and reading the next book. It's sitting on my shelf waiting for me to finish the next one.