nah, my parents have never really worried about what I read. actually it was my mum who got me into reading Terry Pratchett (genius), when i was aboouuuuut…10.
No, mom never censored what I read. But then I never read anything that could be called objectionable. Had I brought home anything on the weird side, yeah, she probably would have said something. This is the approach I plan on taking with SnoopyJr.
The only restrictions I recall were “bodice-ripper” romances when I was somewhere around 12-14 and just starting to read romance novels. I could read tamer adult romance novels (like Harlequins and Harlequin Intrigue). Younger than 12 and I generally preferred children’s novels like Nancy Drew, everything Judy Blume wrote, Sweet Valley High, and so on, so I don’t know what she might’ve restricted if I’d picked out anything else.
At around 12 or 13 my mom handed me Dean Koontz’s Lightning and said I “might like this.” I tore through everything he’d written within a year or two. I own everything Dean Koontz has ever written under his own name. Once I was in high school, I don’t think anyone ever questioned my choice in reading materials.
My parents never really tried to restrict my reading (which was good, because I’d probably have just plowed through them to get to the bookshelf if they had).
I did have a fourth-grade teacher (what IS it with 4th-grade teachers?) that forbade me to bring in a book from home ever again as long as I was in that grade, because I read too much. She was possibly the only teacher I ever truly out-and-out hated in grade school.
My parents never restricted what I read. I used to read all the time too. I do remember in school teachers yelling at me because I would hide a book in my desk and read while they were teaching. They would tell me if I didn’t put the book away they would take it away.
My mom, another librarian, never restricted what I read, but she did complain in my hearing about the people who came in and got nothing but piles of trashy Harlequin romances or Stephen King.
My parents weren’t big readers, in fact, I doubt they would have noticed what I had hold of until it was too late. My grandma did freak out about a few things, but I read them behind her back. (Had to buy several copies of The Satanic Bible before I could finish it, it kept “disappearing”. It wasn’t worth all the trouble I went to, but by golly, I read it!)
I want my kids to read everything.
My parents were voracious readers (something for which I’m exceedingly grateful), and they passed their love of reading onto me. They never kept me from reading anything. Though I read all kinds of genres and levels of books, I was never scarred from reading any of it.
I do remember, however, reading The Color Purple in the 5th grade and being bewildered by it. Re-reading it as an adult, I wondered if either of my parents had read the book at the time. If they had, we probably would have had a talk about it. The rape scene was definitely a bit much for a 10-year-old.
I remember my dad picking up my copy of Atlas Shrugged when I was about 12, and deciding he should read it, and then freaking out b/c I had read it. He even asked my mother why she’d allowed it.
My mother shrugged and said she’d “forgotten” about the sex scenes.
Books with explicit sex scenes were pretty much the only thing my mother didn’t allow me to read…but of course it didn’t stop me from reading them anyway. She had half a dozen torrid bodice-rippers in her lingerie drawer, and I used to “borrow” them, and put the paper cover of some other hardcover on them so that she couldn’t tell what I was reading.
This also worked for any “adult” book I figured she probably wouldn’t approve of.
She never busted me.
Actually, Dung Beetle, you did remind me of the one instance where my mom got upset about something I was reading. I was maybe thirteen, and was plowing through a copy of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and I remember my mom saying something like “Isn’t that the book that all the serial killers carry around?” To which I responded “No, mom, that’s The Catcher in the Rye, you know, SisterArmadillo’s favorite book?” It still is, actually.
To this day, I’m not sure what she was upset about, since she had absolutely no idea what the book was about or why there was any controversy over it. I guess it was just the title? Actually, this did happen in the early nineties, so I guess she probably had heard that there was a controversy, but I know she didn’t have any idea what the controversy was about.
Nope, not that I remember. But there were some interesting moments when Qadgop first got me to read Mercedes Lackey, many years ago. He didn’t really remember which of them had sex in them. They were educational!
I’ve got my love of books from my mother. At first I would go to the library to get Hardy Boys’ stories, then when I found her science fiction collection, I was hooked on that genre. She never restricted any of my reading that I know about though.
V
Nope. My mom never cared much about what I was reading, and I started reading “grown up stuff” around 8.
My parents were both voracious readers, and I was/am. I think my mom made an effort to keep an eye on what I was reading, and there was an understanding that either of my parents were availible to discuss anything confusing, disturbing, or just interesting that I’d come across. Occasionally my reading choices drew commentary [in seventh [I think] grade I decided to read the large hardcover from the basement that turned out to be a feminist treatise on the societal causes/effects of rape], but I was never told there was anything I couldn’t/shouldn’t read.
YOU READ TOO MUCH?
My God, what was wrong with her? Though my female second grade teacher told me it was okay that I didn’t want to memorize multiplication tables (or something like that) because “girls can’t do math”. That one scarred me for life.
I read Lolita in college (for pleasure) and the only reason I had trouble with it was the fact that I knew what was going to happen to him at the end and, despite myself, I liked Humbert.
I do remember my mother seeing me reading a self-help book about depression at the age of four or so (and again when I picked up a book about how to deal with/trick precocious children) and she yelled at me. I think it was mostly fear and embarassment on the first part and not wanting me to know her psychological tricks on the second part.
My parents bought a copy of Everything You’ve Ever Wanted to Know About Sex*
*but were afraid to ask. And ‘left’ it sitting out in our library. So, I learned. 
I read Nabokov’s “Lolita” when I was nine, and didn’t see what all the fuss was about.
I didn’t figure THAT one out until I reread the thing when I was in my twenties.
Mom was kind of weird about “Mad” magazine until I was twelve or so. That was the only kind of restriction on my reading I can really remember that didn’t involve reading material with nudie pictures in it.
This did cause friction on occasion. I very much enlivened one of Mom’s bridge parties by walking in and asking about a word I’d found in “Beneath The Planet Of The Apes,” the novelization of the movie. The phrase in question was directed at Dr. Zaius from the astronaut Taylor, and was “You bloody bastard…”
…but my folks generally felt that anyone capable of lifting the books and following the words in a row shouldn’t be discouraged. The only real criteria was whether or not the PICTURES were appropriate for young readers. This included the book cover.
My parents never seemed to care what I read. I got through Flowers in the Attic when I was ten. My mother knew exactly what was in it because she read it right before I did. I guess it was lucky I read it during the summer. Another kid brought a copy to school the next year and had it confiscated by the teacher.
My mother was alway reading something, and I took after her the minute I could pick up a book. She never told me I couldn’t read anything. I was allowed to check anything I wanted out of the library during the summer, and during the winter, I would reread every book in the house. When she caught me climbing the bookshelf in the hallway to get to her books, she moved them down to a lower shelf. She had everything from Robin Hood and King Arthur to Harlequin romances, and if I wanted to read them I just had to make sure I put them back when I was finished.
My father would make comments about “smut books” every time he saw me reading (no matter what the subject matter of the book was).
The most interesting comment in relation to my reading habits wasn’t even made to me. In a college lit class, the professor was polling the class as to what Dickens novels they had read prior to starting David Copperfield in that class. One of the students mentioned that she’d read Oliver Twist for a 7th grade lit class and the professor said that she’d never use that book for a class that age because it was too dark :eek: …I read Oliver Twist on my own at 8 or 9.
I think that is one of the reasons that book is highly regarded (by some), that in spite of the fact Humbert is a pathetic, despicable human being Nabokov manages to make him somewhat sympathetic. YMMV of course.
My parents never tried to restrict my reading. I was a voracious reader, and my parents would often encourage my brothers and sister to read as much as I did. In retrospect I tended to steer clear of really deep or potentially controversial stuff though.
I don’t think the question ever came up for me. My parents had books but weren’t(then) big readers. But I had a library card early on and went to the bookmobile by myself, on my bicycle. And they never asked to see what I was reading. I remember a few books with scenes that didn’t make a lot of sense to me until I had sex-ed class in junior high, and remember thinking “Oh, so that’s what was going on!” About the same time I obtained a paperback copy of Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex and didn’t let my folks know I had it. Went through a lot of sci-fi after the sixth grade, when my teacher turned us on to it(thanks Mr. Bradbury! You were the best!) and some of that had adult, if not necessarily graphic, themes.