Concerning & Potentially Concerning Content

This is a refreshingly clean book. The potentially concerning content is almost exclusively out of the mouth of the “bad” characters and is always shown in a negative light. The most important potentially concerning item to be aware of revolves around references to other material, mostly books. This title does a great job of weaving in references to other well-known works, both classic, modern and recent titles. The important thing is that not all of these titles are appropriate for all ages. Some should only be considered when children are older, while a few are probably something to avoid completely (e.g., there is one mention of Metallica). Most of these references are books, but there are a handful of other references. Here are just a few examples of referenced items that stuck out: The Hunger Games, Rocky, Survivor, Edger Alan Poe, Agathe Christie, Harry Potter, Judy Blume, Lord of the Rings and Walter the Farting Dog (a book title). In a similar category, there is a mention of a fortune teller game that was popular in old arcades and a mention of the Haunted Mansion game at Disney World. Both of these are obviously things to avoid for Christian so it may be worth bringing these and other references above to your children. — There are a few negative terms: moron, stupid idiot, nerd, stupid (again, this is almost exclusively from the “bad” kids). There are also a few random items: “stab each other in the back”, “an adult’s droopy underpants”, and “unless you are the booby in the booby trap”. There are also a couple mentions of santa in terms of the worldly understanding of Christmas. — The main “bad” character calls people losers and is willing to cheat to lose (he eventually pays a huge price for this). He is called a “brown-noser” for his willingness to deceptively “suck up”. Another girl pretends to be (and is called by others) a “dumb girl”/”airhead”. She does this to deceive people so she can get what she wants (she eventually comes to the good team). Another boy is very negative and calls everything “stupid”. The main character is too into video games and not into books, but this starts to shift as the book goes on. — The last thing we should probably mention is the movie rendition of this title. There was a lesser-known movie created for this book. It would be worth looking at a detailed movie review, but honestly it should probably just be avoided all-together. There is some very strange content included that was not included in the book.