Age Appropriate Reading

The Auteur with a Friend

The creator of the immortal line “The bitches mortared the piss hole and it didn’t blow up! has, this evening, completed his reading of Chickenhawk, which, while still a wonderful introduction to a soldier’s experience of the Vietnam War, becomes even less age-appropriate during the closing twenty pages or so.

He is lying on his bed, looking small, cute and studious, vestiges of the ice cream from his pancake still on his face. “Mum,” he says. “What does ‘semen’ mean?”

Creative Writing

Perhaps a Safer Creative Writing Topic than the Vietnam War?

As part of our homeschooling topic on the Vietnam War, Z has been reading Chickenhawk. While not as “adult” as the current meaning of the title suggests, Bob Mason’s account of flying helicopters during the Vietnam War is, I suspect, a very accurate description of how soldiers lived and, more relevantly, spoke.

So I’m not sure what part of my brain was engaged when I suggested to Z that, when crafting his creative writing piece on the Vietnam War, he should be sure to include some dialogue to bring his characters out a little more.