The second book in the Cherub series is about a child spy organization that the main character, James, is recruited into when he is twelve years old. Now, the books are very good, but the main characters, to me, at least, seem to be written as if they were teenagers- the author makes them do rather grown up stuff. In the second book, when four of the preteens are sent on a mission, one of them winds up getting sent home because she overdosed on cocaine that was given to her by another twelve year old. Now, maybe the author simply decided to make his characters overly mature, but for me, at least, it makes the book much less believable, seeing as the characters are younger than I am.
One of the main overly adult things that some of the characters do is drink. Now, I know that some kids my age do as well, as well as some people who are younger than I am. But the thing that sticks out to me is that in the book, the characters seem to think that it's a given that they drink while on missions, and the other thing is that the adults and older children in their life seem to not care about it. To me, that's unthinkable, because I know, for me personally at least, that if my parents caught me with a beer in my hand before I was in, I don't know, college, I would be in serious trouble. In the book, when the main character takes a urine test, when his guardian gets back the results, he says "You... are clean for drugs, though they found higher levels of alcohol than I would have liked to seen, especially you James. I know you're allowed to drink if you're in a situation where kids around you are drinking, but that's not a license to go crazy." And that was it. I'm just like, huh?
But then I started thinking about it. James and his friends are in a much different position than me- i'm a completely normal eighth grader, James is a spy. When he was drinking the alcohol, he was trying to fit in with the group of people he was supposed to get close to. And when it was found out that his blood alcohol levels were high, his guardian was as disappointed with him as he could be, seeing as James technically hadn't done anything wrong- as his guardian said, he was allowed to drink. So I came to the conclusion that while at first this made me think that the author hadn't done that much research on the behavior of twelve year olds, I was just basing this off of my personal experience- I've never been in a position like that. So, therefore, I relent in my opinion, admitting that I am regarding these characters with a bias. As I continue to read the series, however, this will be something I pay attention to.
*Let me just say, the thing that caused me the greatest reaction was when one of the girls overdosed on cocaine and had to be rushed to the hospital
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