Stormbreaker Book

I read this book because it is so popular with my students. I can see the appeal: espionage, a kid caught in everyone else's plans, having to take care of himself while saving the world. Action, adventure, violence. The boys eat this stuff up. I just wish Horowitz had written it with his readers in mind as the young, impressionable audience that they are. I hate all the label dropping! Do we need to know that our character wears Nike and Gap? Absolutely not. Why feed into this consumerist crap, especially for a young audience that is already so consumed with having to have what is cool. And the car details! Give me a break! Most of the kids and teens reading this have no clue what the differences between engines are. And then there is Alex himself, who appears to me to be an arrogant, showboating, hotshot who thinks he can do anything on his own. Such a bad role model.

This book left me very conflicted as a children's librarian. My elementary students like the books. I think the first one (I cannot testify for the rest of the series as I haven't read them) is full of all the things that I do not want to promote in the collection for which I am responsible: violence, consumerism, and a disrespectful protagonist. They get enough of this is every other form of media. However, kids who don't like to read will read Alex Rider. It has reluctant reader appeal. So do I add it to the books to be discarded and face alienating my students with my conservatism? Do I want a library full of "classic novels" that no one will read? Or do I continue to buy and shelve books like the Alex Rider series and Wimpy Kid series which are immensely popular but set bad examples for their audience?