Thread of assistance for people who find it tricky remaining breezy about the books their dc choose in the library.

After posting that, I googled Moonraker's Bride to see if anyone else remembered it or whether it had disappeared into obscurity. Imagine my surprise on discovering that it still has loads of fans and loads of five star reviews on Amazon. I might even read it again to see if it's as good as I remembered...

When you're young, you really can't discriminate. When I was 14, I had two favourite books, both of which were unputdownable. One was Jane Eyre. The other was Moonraker's Bride. No, not an obscure classic you haven't heard of, but a piece of out-and-out trash romantic fiction. But I loved both of them, and I honestly wouldn't have been able to see why Jane Eyre was better than Moonraker's Bride.

I just read my way through the local library. At 13 I had a better knowledge of the stock than the staff and they were very miffed to find out I wasn't old enough to be their Saturday girl (they took me straight in when I hit 16)

I still don't understand what's so bad about Lady Chatterley though

Purplepidgin I now need to re read all the Xanth books, I think there may be a few I missed back in the day, thanks for remindining me of them :)

When I taught year 5 I always had girls wanting to read trashy babysitter club, Mary Kate and Ashley type books, so we agreed that if they were their school books they had to alternate between them and something more "worthy".
After all we all like a bit of easy reading now and again.

Rainbow Magic is also written by a committee - reminds me of 1984, and the committee written books in that.

I did ban the Katie Price pony books when DD1 was going through the pink glittery books in the library. They're the only books I've ever vetoed.

fairies sound fantastic compared to yet another Beast Quest book - the woman in our local bookshop said they aren't even written by a real person, but by a committee of editors. I can't face another one and have got DS into the Spydog series and How to Train your Dragon.

Rainbow Fairies are tame compared to bloody Tiara Club where EVERY other word IS in CAPITALS

DD1 (23) and her friends read Jacqueline Wilson ad infinitum. DS read books about engines etc (is now a design engineer and thinking of PhD) and a series called Goosebumps. DD2 reads nothing she does not have to read for school & exams except biogs of comedians/presenters/so-called celebs. Yet, is the one of my three with the best exam results. I have had my nose in a book since I learnt to read.

It's a stage in building reading confidence. Plus, it's comforting to read something familiar, else why is Jodi Picoult so popular? I read her books when I want to read something where I know vaguely how it's going to go before I pick it up.

I'm going to be 30 in May and my mother still despairs of my Nora Roberts addiction. :o

I was the girl at school who handed round the mills and boons with the sexy pages dogeared for ease of finding...
Now I'm a librarian
It must be in my blood!

I get sent The Book People catalogue - are the hamster books part of a series that also has magical cats and dogs?

motherinferior - my dad used to tell me I should be reading 'books on etiquette' to improve my table manners I was NINE, and later diagnosed dyspraxic. He did try to get me to read Lord of the Rings, but I only ever saw him read thrillers with foil lettering on the cover and some odd vaguely pervy looking books called Tobin or something. He was someone who thought Oxfam was 'overpriced' so they were probably from the 10p bin at Help The Aged.

Anyway, I had a reading age of 11 by the time I was three, which meant that I skipped ahead and used to read things like 80s Jackie annuals (I still wonder what 'shaders' are and why you want to put them on your face) and then Adrian Mole and Hitchhikers Guide when I was eight or so. I absolutely loved Anastasia, and Paula Danziger too. I did go through a Blyton phase when I was five or six, I just used to ignore the bits that seemed a bit dubious. I still remember the French girl at St Claire's that never went in the sun because she was scared of a tan. And in my teens, when i was a dorky unpopular kid, I read tons of those 1980s Sweet Dreams romance books picked up at jumble sales. If anyone knows what a 'slam book' is, please do enlighten me

I bought my 15yr old nephew The Catcher In The Rye, Catch 22 and A Clockwork Orange for Christmas, plus Zazie in the Metro. I r cool auntie.

Shamefully, the last book I finished on my Kindle was a horrid piece of chick-lit about some dumb broad who goes through the lonely hearts and then meets some lesbian stereotypes from 1974. I'm reading some Richard Ford at the moment and it isn't going down nearly as quickly...

I remember reading H P Lovecraft at around 11 or 12. "the Colour From Space" .....errrrrghhhhhhhh I swear that story actually made it's very own neural pathways in my brain!

Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth (at any rate, before properly computerised loan records) I worked out that you could bend the "6 books at a time" rule. Take out 6 books on Monday. Repeat Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.... Bookworm bliss.

I used to read Mills & Boon when I was 12. I'd buy them in the charity shop and read them during quiet reading time at my Convent school! I'd read the rude bits out to my friends :o

motherinferior are you me??

Oh, hang on, I have a career in public sector penury, and DH reads science fiction instead of fantasy, but still ...

I have some really quite 'interesting' books dotted around, thanks to having taken a course in transgressive literature at university - I'm sure they're going to pop out and haunt me one of these days.

I read some total tosh as a kid. And I loved it, the best worst things I read were the Mary Ann things by catherine cookson that my step-grandmother adored. And yes, hidden Jilly Coopers etc when I was a bit older.

I keep telling myself that mermaids = ponies and fairies = school. But I don't really believe it. Haven't decided what hamsters = ?Enid Blyton? They were looked down on when I was a kid - Secret Seven anyone? But now people seem to think they were ok.

Dontcallmebaby that's my exact plan. Books that I like, I put my all into reading - every character has a different accent, for example (accents are my party trick ). Shit books like Disney Princess I will read one chapter in a bland way that befits the writing. They soon learn

Actually DD (5) and I had a pretend fight the other day as I said I am never reading another Rainbow Fairy book. She said, fine she is going to read them all herself then. Maybe it works after all...

My Mum's (boarding) school issued a list of all banned books. The girls would search out the books on the list and then they would be handed round the school. As a result she never banned us reading anything and we did all go through a stage of reading absolute rubbish as young teenagers. I was addicted to Virginia Andrews, Shirley Conran, Jilly Cooper, Jackie Collins etc etc, my sister read horror. Our English teacher said most kids go through a stage of reading rubbish before they move on to adult books.

Of course I'm still at the age where I can control the books the girls get out of the library so it's still the golden age here.

It is probably bad parenting, you're right; in fact I myself am a third generation English graduate with - sob - more in my family on both sides too. Which means really that I had no hope, it's effectively predetermined, dreadful role models and no options of better things....

Oh don't say that motherinferior, it's a terrible calumny on books. DH and I and all our friends are voracious readers and very very few of them ever got sucked into English Literature degrees - and those were probably down to bad parenting IMO. I refuse to believe that a few thousand books will lead an otherwise healthy child astray.

Reading is overrated anyway. Trust me. Only leads to English degrees and journalistic penury. OTOH an English degree does mean you can have an artless juxtaposition of Gory Thrillers with the complete works of Chaucer, and DP's Truly Dreadful Fantasy Fiction with the sonnets and sermons of John Donne. (Adult equivalent of leaving around Morpurgos, obviously.)

I read all sorts of shite as a child. Read proper stuff too. I vividly remember my mate bringing mills and boons books into school when were 13, so we could look for rude bits.

The cool kids were all doing the rude stuff.

Anyone remember those Flowers in the Attic ones? Not kids books, but read as a kid.

mine read loads of trash - rainbow magic, hamsters in tiaras but the best thing we EVER did was buy them cheap reading lights from Argos. Now they read Famous five, Lemony Sniketts, The dark is rising series and mmmmm Harry blinking Potter (sorry but a bit "He said", they did, "she said" for me....) for 30 min before "lights out".