Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton is an incredible book, which describes genetic engineering and the creation of an extinct species.
Michael Crichton uses marvelous detail throughout the book. As great as the book is, it is not that appropriate for children who are 15 and under because of the gore, description, violence, and obscenities through out the story. Jurassic Park is a great book. Michael Crichton uses such descriptive detail, that you could picture everything that is going on like you are watching a movie. There is not one moment of boredom in the book.
Every second something new is happening or another problem in the park occurs. These things make the book very hard to put down. Jurassic Park is a marvelous book with a great plot. Yet, later it becomes inappropriate for children.
The first thing that makes Jurassic Park not appropriate for young children is that it is amazingly gory. Michael Crichton describes people and animals being killed in a very descriptive manner. When Dennis Nedry, the computer programmer, was on his way to the dock to deliver frozen dinosaurs embryos to another genetic engineering company, a concrete barrier was in his way. He got out of his car and started to run into the jungle. When he reached the jungle river, he heard a soft hooting cry. When he turned around, he saw a dilophasaur standing directly in front of him.
Suddenly, the dilophasaur spit at him. The novel refers to this by saying, Nedryfelt an excruciating pain in his eyes, stabbing like spikes in the back of his skull. It then says, Slowly the realization came to him. He was blindThen there was a new searing pain like a fiery knife in his belly, and then Nedry stumbledthen there was a new pain on both sides of his head. The pain grew worse, and as he was lifted to his feet he knew the dinosaur had his head in its jaws, and the horror of that realization was followed by a final wish, that it would all be ended soon (p.
196). This demonstrates the horrifying description in the book. Another gory scene was when Ed Regis was swallowed by the juvenile T-rex. The book describes this by saying, Regis yelled, and the juvenile ducked his head, and Regis began to scream. No words just a high pitch scream.
The scream cut off abruptly, and when the juvenile lifted his head, Grant saw ragged flesh in his jaws (page 216). These were only two very gory parts out of many. Jurassic Park also has many violent and obscene scenes. Other than the two above, there are many more. One of them was when Henry Wu, the man who was in charge of the making of dinosaurs, was standing out side the lodge when a velociraptor jumped the roof and tore Wu open. The book refers to this by saying, Wu was yanked bodily out of the doorWu was lying on his back already torn open by the big clawthe raptor was tugging at Wus intestines even though Wu was still alive, still feebly reaching up to push the big head away (page 334) This was probably one of the goriest scenes.
Even with all these deaths, and more, there were still lots of injuries. Just about every character was injured in some way. As one could see, Jurassic Park is very violent and gory. Jurassic Park is also obscene. The language used is definitely inappropriate for children our age.
They use foul language throughout the book. At one point, Tim Murphy, the 11 year-old boy, curses four times in one line. He does this when the car falls over the cliff and is stuck in the branches of the trees. Jurassic Park ended up becoming Michael Crichtons most successful novel, and a New York Times Best seller. The book was so successful in fact, that Steven Spielberg ended up making a movie about it three years later.
Overall, Jurassic Park is a spectacular novel that uses great detail. Even though it was such a great book, there is a lot of violence and gore. Because of all this violence, this book is not appropriate for children under 15.
