What do teens read about?

In most news sites, newspapers and blogs in the last few days, one reference keeps popping up - The Hunger Games. This book by Suzanne Collins has been around a while, but since Hollywood decided to take a peek inside the book, the game's changed seriously. We're talking mega-money and mega-fame for the author.

Articles have been written dissecting the moral lessons in the trilogy, calculating its entertainment value, and discussing the characterization. This post-apocalyptic vision of the world is disturbing. Me - I've never been a fan of dystopia.

Elsewhere, I read about a disconnect between today's teens and the novels of Judy Blume. At one time, this author's books flew off the shelves -she wrote about teenage angst, the weighty questions of life involving parents, God, sex, all the biggies in short.

One mother lamented that while she grew up reading Blume's novels, she did not think her daughter could connect with them. I suppose today's teens are more attracted to dystopian scenarios, vampires (remember 'Twilight'?), kids fighting to the death (this happens in 'The Hunger Games') et al.

What a sad commentary on our decade!