AIBU to be angry with DD for reading my book

[Serendipity30]

Just caught DD sneakily reading my book 'Angela's Ashes'. She is 9 and in my view too young to deal with the themes in her book. Ideas please on how to address this with her tom as she is now asleep.

I also hoovered up books at that age.I remember reading James Herbert the fog and being utterly terrified for a week hehe. Stephen king was another favorite at that age.loved the whole horror genre and spent hours in the library.I seem to recall progressing to Arthur c Clarke by the time I was ten and that thoroughly scared the shit out of me because I believed every word of the woo.

My dd is 16 and inherited my love of books. We both have a nook and often we do share books. I was putting something on hers the other week when she saw 50 shades in my list. I was waiting for the "do I let her read it" dilemma when she said "DO NOT PUT THAT CRAP ON MY NOOK!!" So I guess that solved that problem.

I am against films and computer games too young,because that it someone else's imagination,but books are different.
OP makes no mention of the library, if you make regular visits you can have up to 12 books of your own choice lined up and then you don't need to be looking through your parent's choice on the bookshelves.

I read everything I could get my hands on at that age. I found a copy of Rider Haggards 'She' at 9 and devoured it. I bet she would like Gerald Durrell's My Family and other Animals which is a great memoir without the 'misery'. I read it at 9 too.

YABU to have such a shittily written book in the house.

It isn't going to harm her, though.

I read Riders at around that age. There were a few bits I didn't quite grasp but it was very educational!

Goodnight Mr Tom terrified me as a child. I loved it, I still do, but the mother was genuinely frightening and I remember crying over the way she treated Will. I read that at your daughter's age and found it challenging. My mum and I discussed it together and watched the film, which helped a lot (though even now I still find the mother's portrayal in the film very upsetting)

I'm trying to think of particular parts of Angela's Ashes that would be upsetting or disturbing. There is some discussion of sex but it's spoken about in a very naive manner that shouldn't be confusing to a nine year old. Certainly I first picked it up at 11 or so and understood what they were discussing. The themes around infant death might be upsetting however they are encountered in books designed for children/teens such as Vicky Angel, The Cat Mummy (both Jacqueline Wilson) are in many ways handled more tastefully in Angela's Ashes.

I must admit parts did upset me a bit at eleven but that was because I am Catholic and I took parts a bit too literally. If you aren't Catholic or indeed Protestant, it might not resonate so deeply and so you'd struggle with it less.

I wouldn't call it misery memoir. There's a world of difference. It's actually a very uplifting story. The film is fantastic, if she reads it then definitely give the film a go in time (it's a fifteen because of swearing and occasional mild reference to sex and masturbation, and death in infancy)

Be proud that she's reading proper material. Keep her on that track with good books - why not try To Kill a Mockingbird, Pollyanna, What Katy Did, Heidi, Laura Ingalls Wilder, etc.

YABU. I read anything I could get my hands on at that age and none of it scarred me.

What a bizarre thing to be angry about. I'd be absolutely thrilled if my DD showed an interest in reading one of my books. Or indeed any books.

When I was her age, I used to creep down at night into my parents' antique shop and look at the old books he had in stock. I remember being a bit puzzled over 'Gargantua' by Rabelais, but I did think the full colour engravings in an early Victorian medical textbook on venereal disease were very pretty.

If you want to encourage a child to become a voracious reader it is best to let them wander fairly unhindered through the family library. This means you have to make the effort to put anything unsuitable in a special place. I wouldn't worry too much though.

Don't see the issue. Not like it's hard core porn.

We were given Angelas Ashes when we were 9

oldgrandma so jealous you had an antique book shop!

I practice censorship-by-height. The dc can read anything that they can reach without climbing on something. I've explained that there are books with distressing themes, or difficult situations, which they might find upsetting and worrying. Also that there are books which they will enjoy far more when they are older and have a bit more general knowledge and life-experience, so it would be a shame to spoil the book by reading it too soon. It seems to be working well.

OP, your anger at reading is misplaced. Your anger at breaking a house rule is understandable. You must address it from that perspective, rather than drive reading underground.

Your dd has reached an age when you can truly share books. I love discussing books that both I and my dc have read, and they often recommend books to me, so it goes both ways.

I'm not in favour of restricting access to any book, excepting porn manga or other obvious exceptions. At about your daughter's age, as well as the usual Brontes, Dickens and children's classics, I was reading my father's violent thrillers, Morris West's Vatican conspiracies, a horrifyingly graphic concentration camp memoir by a survivor, a random sex novel that came home from a jumble sale with a job lot.

I don't think anger is an appropriate response.

(However, Angela's Ashes is a dreadful, poorly-written piece of misery porn, squalor served up for the middle-classes to tut over, and whose veracity has been questioned by many people, including McCourt's own mother, so I'd encourage your daughter to read something really good next to take the 'seventy-five dead babies, alco Da, martyred Ma, nasty Christian Brothers, squalid shack' taste out of her mouth.)

That approach worked for me too, HerGraciousMaj. I've never banned as such, but I have given my reasons for not wanting them to read some books until they were more mature, or better able to truly enjoy it.

My 9 year old often picks up my books and reads them. I always warn her if it isn't suitable but I have never really stopped her reading, she only really reads a few pages. She was reading "The woman in Black" the other day - even I am too scared to read that! She only read the first chapter though so I don't think there were any scary bits. Even my 7 year old reads my books.

I wouldn't want to discourage them from reading anything but if they picked up something really inappropriate I wouldn't leave it lying around. I would also explain why I didn't think it was appropriate.

I wouldn't get angry though.

I too was reading the whole house's books at that age.

I can understand 'ask before you borrow' for most things, but books? Unless you have real porn etc, I think it's great for a child to be able to roam the lot. I used to read my parents books, sisters, brothers and just ate them up. All sorts. And some with themes/characters/events that might be considered not suitable, but it did me no harm and a lot of good. I learned so much. It would be a shame to restrict a keen 9 year old to only 100 children's books. Books (to the bookish) are like air or food in the house, there for everyone and a necessity of life :-)

OP makes no mention of the library, if you make regular visits you can have up to 12 books of your own choice lined up

In my county you can have 20. :o

Isnt MN amazing! I have learnt so much! I thought Angelas Ashes was a very thought provoking book and I thouroughly loved it and the style of writing.. and his other 2 books. I was a devourer of books from very young and I can think of no book that has damaged me and I read Stephen King very early. I found 'Every Woman' and read that very young too! Now some films...that's a different subject...

I let my dd read what she wants tbh, she's 10 and has just read the hunger games, she would happily read Angela's ashes too , of course I wouldn't be letting her read 50 shades of grey but I wouldn't have anything like that in the house.

Angela's Ashes isn't a great fun read but it's wouldn't be harmful to a nine year old. (pigs head for Christmas might be a bit disturbing) Keep the book out of sight for a few days, get her a new book?

At nine if she is reading well try her with more grown up books? Vet them first? Is she into Harry Potter?

I was an avid reader as a child and had read the whole contents of the library in primary school. When I went to secondary school I read Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer, at the age of 11, the teacher obviously hadn't read it, the rape scene was far too graphic for a tender age but it didn't do me any long term damage.

Btw I am not suggesting that Harry Potter is a grown up book but the books are lengthy and a good story if she wants to get into novels rather than children's short stories.

It was Little Women that traumatised me.

^^YY!

Other books on our 1960s 'Nursery Index' included The Little Wooden Horse, Black Beauty and The Water Babies - all good classic children's books which had to be hidden away after causing my younger brother to cry himself to sleep for months.

Wuthering Heights - a set book at school - messed with my 13 year old head far more than a contraband copy of Mandingo purloined from under my BF's mother's bed. WH was supposed to be 'literature' and therefore instrinsically important and 'good', but the inexplicable emotional and physical cruelty portrayed was deeply disturbing. At least Mandingo could be interpreted within the context of slavery and was obviously intended to be a trashy bodice-ripping heap of sleaze

OP - if your DD is upset by reading Angela's Ashes then she will have learned a hard truth about peeking into the Pandoras Box that is the world of adult books. Hopefully she will ask your advice about what to read in future, or at least read a bookjacket carefully to find out what the book is about before reading it. She is very unlikely to experience any lasting damage!