Different Seasons

Review

Common Sense Media says

Four classic King tales, pretty raw stuff in places.
greenON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age.
yellowPAUSE: Know your child; some content
may not be right for some kids.
redOFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age.
not for kidsNOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age.

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Quality
 
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What parents need to know

Parents need to know that this book is intended for adult readers, not kids. However, three of its four novellas became big movies (The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, and Apt Pupil), and because King's storytelling is often irresistible even to reluctant readers, his work is often found on high school and even middle school library shelves, so it's a good bet your kids may gravitate to this one. Be aware that sex, violence, and foul language abound, and the concentration-camp rape scene (for example) in the very dark Apt Pupil is seriously disturbing.

  • Educational value2
    King is a compelling storyteller, and because of this his work turns up on school reading lists. The stories in this collection offer a good opportunity to study his craft, as well as pick up assorted local color and historic detail, but the material can be a minefield, from constant profanity and toxic family relationships to explicit sex and violence.
  • Positive messages3
    While readers tend to gravitate to King to be scared, grossed out, or entertained rather than inspired, his work also stays true to a clear moral compass, and the positive characters behave with their own integrity. Keeping faith with friends and family matters. Making something of your life matters. Doing the right thing, even when it's easier not to, matters; it sometimes confers heroic stature on the person who does it, and sometimes restores order by righting a longstanding wrong.
  • Positive role models3
    Villains, creeps, and monsters abound in these pages. But also in evidence, and something of a recurring motif in King, are quiet, often misfit protoganists who, in the face of overwhelming adversity and injustice, hold steady, maintain their integrity, and achieve feats of heroism from the minor to the otherworldly -- sometimes, gratifyingly, to the detriment of the villains, creeps, and monsters.
  • Violence5
    Apt Pupil in particular is so replete with vivid atrocities (rape, stabbing, shooting, burning, dismemberment) against everyone from neighborhood kitties to Holocaust victims as to merit the strongest of parental advisories. This being Stephen King, it's fair to expect gore galore at any given moment, whether it takes the form of car-wreck carnage, prison mayhem, or corpses in the countryside, though its treatment is appropriate to its context in the story.
  • Sex5
    On the dark side: prison rape. Concentration camp rape, with foreign objects. Cheating spouses. Confused, sometimes hostile teenage sex. On the not-so-dark side: sex between happily married spouses, pregnant mom showing extraordinary devotion to her child.
  • Language5
    "F--k," "s--t," many swear words on many occasions. This is usually consistent with the character who's speaking -- a convict, a soldier, an adolescent boy -- rather than simply gratuitous, as King is a skilled craftsman, but expect foul language to crop up early and often.
  • Consumerism1
    Various consumer products of the 20th century American landscape, from Coca-Cola and Chicken Delight to makes and models of cars, figure in the stories as part of the scene-setting, but are rarely of more than incidental interest to the characters. Posters of a succession of famous sexy ladies play a key role in Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.
  • Drinking, drugs, & smoking5
    Drinking and smoking by adult characters occurs regularly; kid characters sometimes drink, smoke, and use drugs, from casual experimentation to serious abuse. In the latter case, while the kids ultimately pay a heavy price, they often wreak severe mayhem first.
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What's the story?

DIFFERENT SEASONS is a collection of four Stephen King novellas: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, a wrongfully convicted man's quest for justice; The Body, in which four 12-year-old boys set off in search of another boy's corpse in the countryside; Apt Pupil, the story of an all-American boy's descent into evil with the help of a Nazi war criminal; and The Breathing Method, a postwar tale of a remarkable birth with supernatural overtones.

Is it any good?

 

There's great stuff here, but it calls for judgment. King is so successful because he's a very good storyteller. He's also somewhat noted for a tendency to write long (or indeed multi-volume) books, so these four tales are a good introduction to his work. Apt Pupil is so dark that parents should really read it before their kids do (and Shawshank has its very intense moments), while The Body (adapted for the 1986 film Stand By Me) has become a beloved, if gritty, coming-of-age tale. As King says in the afterword, he doesn't mind being typecast in the horror genre a bit, and if horror is not your thing, you may find the underlying creepiness and frequent outright violence too much. But there are also wonderful, almost laugh-out-loud moments of virtue triumphant that might be worth it.

What families can talk about

  • Families can talk about why Stephen King's stories are so popular. Is it fun to be scared, or is there something else going on?

  • If you were the victim of a big injustice, like being sent to prison for a crime you didn't commit, how would you deal with it? How would you try to make things right and not go crazy in the meantime?

  • One of the important conversations in The Body is about how important your friends are, yet they can drag you down. How can friends be a positive or a negative force in your life?

  • How do the stories compare with the movie versions, if you've seen those?

This review was written by Mary Eisenhart

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This review was written by Mary Eisenhart
Topics:history
Author:Stephen King
Book type:Fiction
Genre:Horror
Publisher:Signet
Publication date:March 2, 2004
Number of pages:512
Paperback price:$8.99
This review was written by Mary Eisenhart
 

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ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age.
PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids.
OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age.
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BEST: Really engaging, great learning approach.
GOOD: Pretty engaging, good learning approach.
FAIR: Somewhat engaging, OK learning approach.
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