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"    Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen and Liam Hemsworth as Gale Hawthorne in The Hunger Games. I&amp;#039;m counting down the days to the premiere of The Hunger Games movie on March 23. I&amp;#039;m not afraid to admit that I&amp;#039;m a huge fan of the young adult (YA) trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Yes, my friends make fun of my addiction to YA novels. The series has a huge following akin to Harry Potter and Twilight; everyone from young adults to middle-aged women like me are fans.  The story is set in the future in a post-apocalyptic North America that has been ravaged by war and famine. The country has been divided into 12 districts and a Capitol, and each year two teenagers from each of the districts are selected to participate in the titular Hunger Games, in which they must fight the other districts&amp;#039; &amp;quot;tributes&amp;quot; to the death (Capitol residents are not part of the Hunger Games). The victor wins food for a year for his or her district.  The Hunger Games are televised throughout the country and often manipulated by the &amp;quot;game makers&amp;quot; in the Capitol. As if children fighting to the death wasn&amp;#039;t enough of a plotline, in the midst of it all is a love triangle between heroine Katniss Everdeen and her leading men: Peeta Mellarck and Gale Hawthorne.  In a nutshell, it&amp;#039;s about survival, war, oppression, and politics with a bit of a love story mixed in.  It&amp;#039;s pretty intense and violent content for a movie rated PG-13, meaning kids ages 13 years and older can see it without parental supervision. And if the movie is anything like the book, it will be pretty graphic as it shows Katniss fighting for survival in the Hunger Games\u2014often at the price of killing others\u2014as well as struggling with the morality of killing people who help her along the way.  So is the movie too violent for teenagers? I don&amp;#039;t think so. I think it&amp;#039;s a great way to talk to kids about poverty, war, and survival. These are things that are really happening to people\u2014even children\u2014in other countries. We&amp;#039;ve all read stories of child soldiers in Africa, child slavery in Asia, and wars in other countries, but how much do our kids know about it?  Plus, I think it&amp;#039;s an excellent opportunity to talk about society&amp;#039;s obsession with the media, and how stories can be influenced or controlled for ulterior motives. In the book, viewers perceive Katniss and Peeta to be a couple, which they play up to gain more favor with game makers.  If you haven&amp;#039;t read it yet, and have a teenager who has or wants to\u2014I highly encourage you to pick up this page-turner. It could be a great bonding experience with your kids. It shows them you&amp;#039;re interested in what they&amp;#039;re reading. While my kids are too young to read the books or watch the movie, I still think they do present an opportunity for me to talk to them about the story in an age-appropriate manner. I could bring up the fact that some people don&amp;#039;t have food or homes, and that wars happen because people can&amp;#039;t agree on things. It&amp;#039;s an opportunity to teach empathy and tolerance.  Do you think The Hunger Games is too violent for kids?  Tracey Black is the author of Don&amp;#039;t Mess with Mama, a blog about parenting, work-life balance, healthy eating, and life as a far from perfect mom. She has three boys under the age of eight, and lives in San Diego, California. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.redbookmag.com/life/mom-kids/news/a13612/hunger-games-movie-kids/>