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.

Age guidance is leaky, I'm sure all 14 year olds who are studying Macbeth will be able to cope with a 15 rated film of it. There's nothing magic that happens on a child's 15 birthday that means they are suddenly much more mature.

God, I wish I'd never mentioned Macbeth! This was just meant to be a nice interesting chatty thread about memories and books.

Yes it is. You can absolutely show a 15 for educational purposes in a class with 14 yr olds.

What's the point of having age restrictions on films then?

For cinemas. Not schools.

Doesn't alter the validity of my question. If a French teacher decided to screen Baise-moi, even to year twelve, it would be regarded as a safeguarding failure and a large part of why it would be seen as a safeguarding failure would be the 18 certificate and why it had that 18 certificate.

If teachers can override the film classification boards then that leaves a safeguarding loophole.

It does alter the validity of your question. Ive told you what the law is. How does that not?

also, are you seriously saying macbeth needs removing from the gcse curriculum?

I read Catcher in the Rye when I was a teenager in peak self-absorbed phase and I still found the protagonist insufferable.

On the other hand I'm reading Goodnight Mister Tom to my primary aged children right now. I don't think it's inappropriate at all. I loved it when I was in primary school. Yes it has themes of abuse, death and mental illness which most children luckily won't have personal experience of, but it's a heartwarming story.

I did Brother in the Land at school too and I remember the baby born with no mouth.

Started reading Jilly Coopers and Jackie Collins when I was 12. Also Stephen Kings - I remember one where a woman shags a tree which I didn’t understand then, or now really. I used to borrow the Virgina Andrews sagas off my uncle’s girlfriend - they all seem to involve child abuse and misery.

I can’t remember the book but a man’s spunk is described as being like bernaise sauce 🤢

No, because a book isn't a film.

It is neither. It is a play.

Do you also object to gcse students watching it at the theatre?

It was on many sheets of paper bound together between two covers when I read it, hence a book.

Play productions don't come with age certifications. Part of that is because the achievable level of realism is far lower than in a film. I also wouldn't expect to see a rape, explicit or implied, in a stage production of Macbeth. Also, you are forgetting that the rape isn't in the text, that's what "gratuitous" meant, yet Polanski put it in anyway, probably because he likes raping. I was blindsided with that at 14 after being sexually assaulted at eight. One quarter of girls will be sexually assaulted by 16: showing a film in a compulsory subject's class that contains a rape with no prior warning because it's not in the play script shows no consideration for a quarter of the girls in that class.