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Original poster

Which books did you read before you were really old enough to understand them?

212 replies

PineappleSeahorse · 27/02/2025 18:48

I was a voracious and precocious reader as a child and I became obsessed with my library’s copy of Animal Farm when I was 7. I loved it but of course I had no idea what it was really about.

I suppose that I could have made more inappropriate choices of reading material but I’m curious to know which books you read as a child that you probably shouldn’t have.

OP posts:
Redheadedstepchild · 27/02/2025 19:40

Death In Venice by Thomas Mann.

I was 12.

Sunnysideup4eva · 27/02/2025 19:41

kiwiblue · 27/02/2025 19:23

Goodnight Mister Tom - there's so much about child abuse in it, I was probably about 10?!

Lots of unsuitable books from my mum's bookshelf as a young teen eg the Outlander/Cross Stitch series.

Goodnight Mr Tom the themes are handled really sensitively and in a child appropriate way and this is still a common book studied in yr6 as part of learning about wwii. There's not 'so much' child abuse in it it's just something that is alluded to in parts of the book. I don't think this is inappropriate for older children who do need to learn about more challenging themes sometimes

AnneShirleysNewDress · 27/02/2025 19:48

As others have said, the Flowers in the Attic books. I was in primary 7 so age 10/11 at the time. I first read Jilly Cooper not long after.

BarnacleBeasley · 27/02/2025 19:48

I found Forever boring when I was too young for it, so didn't get all the way through it at the age (9ish?) when I was reading all the other Judy Blume books. I did read Starring Sally J Friedmann as Herself though and didn't understand everything as I had no idea about Hitler etc.

I read The Handmaid's Tale when I was about 12 or 13 and did understand it but scandalised my RE teacher by explaining about the ritualised sex in it (apparently I thought this was relevant to whatever we were doing in class...).

The one that really went over my head wad Tess of the D'Urbervilles when I was 15. The narration was so oblique that I didn't realise she'd been raped until she gave birth.

HarperStern · 27/02/2025 19:48

Fanny Hill and Moll Flanders.

But also, so, so, so many of my dad's library books (blood, gore, rape, pillage etc) and the books my mum was lent by friends (Virginia Andrews, the depressing one about the junkie kids in Berlin). Virtually every book mentioned in this entire thread before I was 16 Grin.

saveforthat · 27/02/2025 19:49

Bookaholic73 · 27/02/2025 18:50

I was just going to say Animal Farm and also 1984.

Snap.

Aworldofmyown · 27/02/2025 19:52

Kane & Abel. Then the Colour Purple. I was about 11.

Also read the Virginia Andrews books.

LeavesOnTrees · 27/02/2025 19:53

To kill A Mockingbird, did not understand the significance of the father defending a black man. I just thought, well that's his job as a lawyer, so what is the fuss about.

A Catcher in the Rye for school - I thought it was boring, with him just wondering about not doing much.

Jane Eyre, I gave up on as they kept going for walks and talking, I didn't get it.

Flowers in the Attic, I completely got it but was maybe too young for all the incest and abuse. Cried when Cory died.

Great Expectations, I gave up half way through in my late teens, then came back to it about 10 years later and was so moved.

I don't know about anyone else, but Deenie by Judy Blume had me paranoid about having a bent spine for years.

kiwiblue · 27/02/2025 19:55

Sunnysideup4eva · 27/02/2025 19:41

Goodnight Mr Tom the themes are handled really sensitively and in a child appropriate way and this is still a common book studied in yr6 as part of learning about wwii. There's not 'so much' child abuse in it it's just something that is alluded to in parts of the book. I don't think this is inappropriate for older children who do need to learn about more challenging themes sometimes

Show quote history

I'm not sure I agree. The bit where the mum locks them in a cupboard and his baby sister dies was really awful and I found it pretty traumatic. Also when he goes back to her, she sews him back into his underwear and beats him, if I remember correctly. I'm not sure it's sensitive and child appropriate, but perhaps I'm just oversensitive.

LegallyBlende · 27/02/2025 19:56

Way too many! I didn't understand all I was reading. Jilly Cooper, Jeffrey Archer...

oustedbymymate · 27/02/2025 19:58

@TheRozzers yes Virgina Andrews when I was about 11/12!!

Tortielady · 27/02/2025 20:00

I read the Flowers in the Attic books when I was 16 and I'm not convinced they were age appropriate even then (I'm now 60 and I'm still not sure😉) and as for My Sweet Audrina, what a thoroughly nasty book that is. I wouldn't touch it now.

I discovered The Thorn Birds when I was about 13, not long after it was published and loved it, in spite of having an uneasy sense about some of its themes. I'd never met a priest, but I was sure they weren't supposed to behave like that. . .

wannabebetter · 27/02/2025 20:00

MarkWithaC · 27/02/2025 19:33

James Herbert horror novels (The Rats etc) when I was about 8. Full of gore and sex. Grin

Salems Lot and Christine, when I was older, about 11, but still too young. I remember being very spooked.

Me too!! I got obsessed with James Herbert when I was about 13, I remember feeling very strange (turned on!) at the sex without knowing why or what was going on fully!

TeaRoseTallulah · 27/02/2025 20:02

The Joy of Sex, The Happy Hooker and pretty much all of Jilly Cooper's books!

MuddlingThroughLife · 27/02/2025 20:04

TheRozzers · 27/02/2025 18:52

I read all the Virginia Andrews novels when I was about 10 which totally normalised child abuse, rape and incest.

I read them all too at the age of 11 I think! I enjoyed them even at that age. Not sure what that says about me 🤔

PersianStar · 27/02/2025 20:04

Yes to Virginia Andrews. I borrowed my older sisters so I was probably about 10 when she was 16.
I always remember a book aimed at teenagers called Junk about teenage heroine addicts. Also probably about 10 when I read it, I maybe didn’t understand it properly at the time but it put me off drugs for life!

Pyjamatimenow · 27/02/2025 20:05

I used to read lots of Danielle steel when I was about 10!

DuckonaBike · 27/02/2025 20:06

I read Nancy Mitford’s Love in a cold climate when I was about 11 and large chunks of it went straight over my head. The teenage girl who’s been groomed by her creepy uncle and thinks she’s in love with him baffled me, and I didn’t get that Cedric was gay!

ItGhoul · 27/02/2025 20:07

kiwiblue · 27/02/2025 19:55

I'm not sure I agree. The bit where the mum locks them in a cupboard and his baby sister dies was really awful and I found it pretty traumatic. Also when he goes back to her, she sews him back into his underwear and beats him, if I remember correctly. I'm not sure it's sensitive and child appropriate, but perhaps I'm just oversensitive.

Show quote history

It’s literally written for 10-11 year olds. It’s got some dark stuff in it but it’s not ‘inappropriate’. It’s not ‘inappropriate’ for children to read about things that are frightening or sad. It’s not adult material.

PerspicaciaTick · 27/02/2025 20:07

Thomas Hardy and Daphne du Maurier at about 9-11 years old. I loved du Maurier but generally felt Hardy was making a bit of a meal of life.

KohlaParasaurus · 27/02/2025 20:08

I picked my mum's Textbook for Midwives (a nursing college prize) off the shelf when I was around 9. I wasn't banned from reading her nursing textbooks, but when she caught me with that one she snatched it away and it disappeared. It didn't mean a thing to me at the time anyway, since I didn't even know what a midwife was, and there were no real life illustrations.

Sticking to age-appropriate reading material when I was at primary school generally wasn't a problem for me. I was provided with plenty of it. Then I read Jaws at 12, which was possibly a bit sketchy, but I'd seen the film and I was allowed to use it as my "work of modern fiction, the author to be approved by the tester" for my Reader badge at the Guides. I also devoured the Poldark novels at the same age. And then I, Claudius, Claudius the God, and the Penguin translations of The Greek Myths (also Robert Graves) and The Twelve Caesars, and a bunch of other fiction and non-fiction works about the Ancient Romans, from which I learned some new words, not all of which were suitable for using in school creative writing exercises.

PenneyFouryourthoughts · 27/02/2025 20:08

Flowers in the Attic. Yikes.

Polo by Jilly Cooper. Again, yikes!

Throughthebluebells · 27/02/2025 20:08

Valley of the Dolls, The Exorcist, Clockwork Orange, Fanny Hill and many other very unsuitable adult books I found in my parents' bookcases. I was an avid reader and never had enough books to read!

MargaretThursday · 27/02/2025 20:09

I read anything and everything from an early age, so probably a lot. These are two I remember.

I read Lord of the Rings in year 2. Mostly by determination as my big sister had been raving about it and I was not going to miss out. I think anything inappropriate went over my head though, and I enjoyed it - and worked out how to do phonics while reading it which I hadn't got before due to the long incomprehensible names.

Perhaps even more inappropriate when I was younger, probably about 6yo, might have only been 5yo, when I picked off from among the Ladybird books on our shelves a book of the same size called "Corrie". It was a shortened version of "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom, who was in a concentration camp during WWII as her family was hiding Jews.
I can't remember the point where I realised this wasn't fiction, but fact. I remember two scenes particularly.
One was after she'd been released, she limped up the road and knocked on a house door to ask for help. The couple in there brought her a drink and a dry biscuit because they said "your stomach wouldn't be able to cope with anything richer". And I lay under my bed (where I was reading) and sobbed for the relief Corrie felt when she knew she'd come among kind people again.
The other was much later, Corrie had been talking about forgiveness to a group of people and a man came forward and said to her sincerely how much her talk had meant to him. She looked up and saw one of the SS guards from the camp. She took his hand and forgave him. Still brings a lump to my throat.
I then went and asked dm many questions about concentration camps etc that you probably really don't want to answer from your rather sensitive infant aged child. I remember her look of horror when she realised what I'd been reading. She hid the book and I've not read it again. I don't know if I want to. I remember the peaceful feeling from Corrie and her love that shone through.
I also remember what dm said when I asked why the Jews were murdered. She said that the Jews have been persecuted for centuries, are still persecuted and will be persecuted in the future. 40 years later, on October 7th 2023 I remembered and the truth of that really hit me.

PurBal · 27/02/2025 20:10

C S Lewis, The Last Battle
Melvin Burgess, Junk