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

[PineappleSeahorse]

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.

@KohlaParasaurus my 16 year old loves reading those Cathy Glass books. She recently discovered Torey Hayden but when I said I had read all of those she was a bit miffed because apparently reading the same books that your mother has read is "cringe".

@TeaRoseTallulah good point. My mother gave me a book when I was 12 that said I would menstruate once a month and not be able to go swimming. It did not fill in all the blanks!

Lots of classics when I was 10-11 and had exhausted all the usual children's classics at home and in the local library. This would have been in the early 1970s when there was no such thing as teen or young adult fiction.

Jane Eyre, Silas Marner and Pride and Prejudice all spring to mind as things I read before I could appreciate them. I thought they were all deadly dull (which is no longer my view)!

I didn't read any more Jane Austen until I did A level English and Persuasion was on the syllabus. I remember warning a friend saying something like "oh no. We've got to do Jane Austen. She's so boring". I started reading and was hooked, finished the book in a couple of days and then devoured all the rest in the next few weeks.

The Sven Hassel books about a German Panzer Regiment at about 11. My parents only realised I'd snuck them off the bookshelf when I called my brother a "fanny with ears". Still one of my favourite and most usefully descriptive put downs.

Hated that book with a passion!!!

I loved those books!!!

First period and I sat in a bath with my Dr Whites on! All because my mum's Mills and Boon books had adverts for tampons (did not show them but said you could confidently swim in them). It was only when mum said "...of course you have removed your sanitary towel, haven't you?" as I watched it disintegrate in the water!!!

Forever by Judy Blume when I was 10. I had read all her others. Not sure what my mum was thinking when she gave it to me!

Reminds me, we did Macbeth for GCSE (so aged 14 or 15) and were shown the Polanski film, which as I recall starts with some dismembered limbs being waved about and plunged into the witches’ cauldron 😬😄

Lord of The Flies when I was about 8, I was traumatised 😅

And the gratuitous rape as the castle is invaded. Completely inappropriate for school children.

Oh no , sorry but that made me chuckle!

I've obviously blocked that bit out of my memory... No recollection at all!

A soldier pulling a screaming woman's skirts up against a wall, followed by a discretion cut. It and the hanging scene near the start are the only two parts of the film I recall clearly.

When I say "gratuitous", I mean that Polanski didn't have to put it in. It wasn't contributing to the plot in any way.

I did too!

Came to say the same. Completely passed me by in that I got that it wasn't right somehow but not sure.

Also I read a LOT of Stephen King which I was far too young for

I'll just get Ralph out.

The thing with Judy Blume's Forever it was all the non main characters storylines that went over my head and barely had an impact on me when I first read it at around age 12.
There was a cousin/friend who hid her pregnancy and then gave her baby up for adoption (more normal in the 70s for teen mums) yet seemed sad she was doing that.
There was a male friend who tried to kill himself because he was worried he was gay.
Reading it as a teen it was all OMG they're having sex but as an adult it was "wow there's all this going on too".

It was presented as a true story but it was, in fact, total bollocks. It was written by a woman called Beatrice Sparks, who was a Mormon youth counsellor and incredibly unscrupulous and exploitative in her work.

There is a very good book about Sparks and her work, and how it actually really hurt a lot of people and their families, called Unmask Alice by Rick Emerson.

The Bell Jar. I read it in my teens, but I just didn’t understand it?

The film you're talking about is rated 15. So I'd say perfectly OK for a GCSE class to watch. It's legally deemed appropriate and a GCSE age teenager could walk into a cinema and watch it alone if they wanted to.

I also watched it at school, and liked it so much that my parents bought it for me on VHS for my birthday. It's moderately gruesome. The rape scene is very brief and implied rather than explicit. It's a good adaptation that captures the atmosphere of the play - which, let's face it, is an dark and gory piece of work that dwells on the bleak horrors of war.

(Polanski himself, though, is a horrific individual who should be in prison.)

Yeah I felt right stupid but period adverts weren't as obvious as they are now!

The red room freaked me out!

Lord of the Flies when I was 12.

Loved it. The school librarian asked me what I thought of it: "I think it wouldn't have gone wrong if it hadn't been for Jack."

Librarian: "You might change your mind when you're older."

It's not OK for 14 yos, which is some of year ten.