12-year-old boy's school librarian refuses to give him ‘The Hunger Games’ book because it's above his reading level, so his father buys him the series box set: ‘It broke my son's heart’

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Oct 24, 2025 4:00 PM EDT

A 12-year-old boy, who is admittedly not a reader, decides he wants to start reading The Hunger Games after watching the first movie with his father. When he asks the school librarian for the novel, she refuses to give it to him because it his above his reading level. Instead of punishing his child for reading, the father buys him all three books in the series. Talk about parent of the year!

In this decade, reading is more important than ever before. Children are obsessed with their iPads, phones, Fortnite, and hundreds of other types of digitized media/electronics. We can't put down a non-reader's first interest in books because then, they'll think they aren't cut out for reading at all. Discouraging a child from reading, especially as a literature educator, is all kinds of wrong. Luckily, this tween has a parent who'd prefer to help his child get through the book than not have him read it at all.

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    a young boy sitting in a chair and reading a book
    via Brooke Cagle For Unsplash+

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

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    "AITA for buying my son this novel?"

    My son is twelve years old and has never been a reader. He always preferred video games, television and toys. But recently we
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    started watching movies together. Once a week, typically on Friday evenings with a bucket of popcorn.
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    A couple weeks ago we watched The Hunger Games. I watched the movie a long time ago and my
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    son recommended it because his friend talked about it a lot. He really enjoyed the movie. Fast forward to
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    next week when I asked if he wanted to watch the sequel, he said no, that he wanted to read the books as he watched the films.
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    He mentioned his school library had the first novel and he planned on checking it out.
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    The following day he comes home with no novel and tells me his Librarian said he could not check that book out because it was out of his reader level. I
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    didn't really understand what my son was talking about.
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    Apparently it's a color coded system and you need to read books in color and test out of them before advancing into the next color bracket.
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    I called the school and the librarian explained that my son likely wouldn't be able to understand the
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    content of the book yet and recommended he read books within his level first. It broke my son's heart and mine
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    too for him. So I took him to Walmart and we bought the box set that included all the novels. He packed the
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    novel in his backpack and told me he planned on reading it during break or lunch.
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    a stack of hunger games books
    via Elin Melaas for Unsplash
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    So now I'm wondering, AITA for pushing back against this policy at school and letting my son take it to read during breaks?
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    infinity_style NTA. You absolutely did the right thing. I can guess why the school may have that system, but discouraging kids from reading what they want is dumb. If he has a question, he'll ask.
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    Gernahaun I would have been furious, as a child, and am almost as angry as an adult. STOPPING a child from reading?! They're interested in a book, and a LIBRARIAN says they're "not able to understand" the content?! Fuck that.
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    TripMaster478 NTA. Everyone's different and they don't slide into the standard slots. If you think he's ready then go for it. More. importantly, if you've found something passionate HE WANTS TO READ, holy shit! You may have just fostered a reader for life, and that makes for a huge advantage in the world in a lot of ways.
    via TripMaster478
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    NyxianGaming No, your not an a hole for thinking your son can understand plot points and narratives at 12 years old. I'm wondering how you could possibly think you're an а hole for having faith in your kid. That school is trash though.
    via NyxianGaming

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school peeta mellark reading kids middle school read at school childrens-books parenting good parenting books dad hunger games parent of the year katniss everdeen parent son parents Father
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