Another classic that I am glad to not have read in school so that I can read at my own pace and not scrape apart with a fine tooth comb. Naturally my brain already did that already, but at least it wasn't expected of me.

When you're entrenched in the literary world, this is one of the books you hear quite a bit about, especially when you're a youth librarian. While I don't think any of the kids near me will be waving a pig's head anytime soon, there has for a while been a trend of becoming desensitized to violence, mostly due to media and current events.

I had a range of emotions while reading this book: foreboding, disgust (positive), suspicion, fear, sadness, empathy. It really takes you on a journey on what appears to be a children's adventure until strained relationships and a battle for dominance take it to a dangerous level.

I am fully behind the reading of the kids showing the effects of growing up in an imperialist society that hinged on colonization and domination of people to gain power. To say that these kids are just submitting to base urges gives a very poor view of humanity rather than admitting a lot of these behaviors are learned. Jack Merridew, a privileged private school boy that had power over others is going to want to maintain that dominance because that is his normal, that is his reality that he has lived in. There's no regression, only now a violent urge to maintain what once was had and he enacts that by using tactics that the history of his country has proven to be useful. 

My heart goes out to poor Simon. Lil dude just wanted to be by himself but also help out. 

I think there were some areas I would have loved more clarification/exploration on, but overall I enjoyed it.