'How is this more appropriate?' Parent baffled after school assigns 'Hunger Games' to fifth-grader

Many of the heated debates over reading material for K-12 schools have occurred in red states, where MAGA Republicans have raged against "critical race theory" and books they consider "woke" — which could be anything from "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" to Alice Walker's "The Color Purple."

But in Solona Beach, California, a different type of parent/teacher debate recently took place: one involving Stephen King's 1981 horror novel "Cujo" and Suzanne Collins' series of dystopian novels "The Hunger Games."

Solona Beach parent Kaia Alexander's 11-year-old son Atticus is a student at Skyline Elementary School, where a teacher objected when he brought a copy of "Cujo." The teacher was disturbed by a description of "Cujo" as a book that "depicts pretty graphic violence, and has fairly explicit sexual acts."

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Kaia Alexander, according to an article published by the Daily Beast published on May 17, had asked her son not to bring "Cujo" to school and suspended his phone privileges for disobeying her. But she found it bizarre that his teacher chose "The Hunger Games" as a replacement.

The mother told the Daily Beast, "(Atticus) said: Look! She took away 'Cujo' and gave me 'Hunger Games.' He couldn’t believe it. He was laughing…. How is this more appropriate? This is a book about children murdering children."

After tweeting about the incident, Kaia Alexander found that King had a lot of admirers on social media.

Atticus' mother, who named her son after the Atticus Finch character in the 1960 novel/1962 movie "To Kill a Mockingbird," told the Beast, "Obviously, Stephen King is a national treasure. I'm thrilled my son discovered his books and the love of reading at this age. And I'll proudly continue to provide Atticus with any books he wants to read, and we'll discuss the themes and situations from the pages together. I think there's no better place to learn about adult issues and what it is to be human than from books."

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