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Original poster

What about 100 books you really don't want your children to read!?

83 replies

bigdeludedswainstrikesagain · 23/01/2009 22:22

Let me start you off with two I should not have read as a fairly young child.

My Dad used to leave his books in downstairs loo so I read Cujo - which gave me horrendous nightmares for months and a Roman era sex and slaves romp (no idea what it was called - a toga ripper!) which was very graphic and rather inappropriate to be left in the reach of children! There were also countless cold war era spy novels but they were quite exciting and educational (rubbish covers though guns and blood stains and shapely legs + high heels!).

So no Stephen King till they are over at least 12. No literary porn. And I will add no Jordan Bios!

what else?

OP posts:
HumphreyCobbler · 08/08/2009 19:46

what is the problem with harry potter?

i know it is not the most brilliantly written series ever, but after seeing how children loved it (am a teacher who read it aloud to her class before the hype started) i am really looking forward to sharing it with my dc.

excuse lack of capitals, am typing one handed.

i read anything while growing up, there was no ban in my house

Pollyanna · 08/08/2009 19:52

I remember asking our rather po faced elderly librarian for a Marquis de sade book when i was young! Strangely enough he refused

I rather wish my dd aged 8 hadn't read the twilight books already, but she has unfortunately.

Me and my sister loved reading my mum's georgette heyer books when we were children.

GetOrfMoiLand · 08/08/2009 19:56

I bet the roman toga porn mentioned in OP was Maia by whatshisname who wrote Watership Down.

It was full of orgies and floggings. Read it myself when I was about 10.

I would rather my daughter didn't read Twilight. Apart from being crap the main character is an absolute passive agressive twat as well as a vampire. God only knows how he is an attractive character.

Will get off my soap box now.

Also, Tracy Beaker books.

GetOrfMoiLand · 08/08/2009 19:58

And those dozy Goosebump books.

BitOfFun · 08/08/2009 20:20

I read The Other Victorians aged 12 (old porn) and my dad misguidedly bought me the Amityville Horror at about the same time. I was so terrified I had to keep it under my bed...

Tbh, dd1 barely reads for pleasure, so I wouldn't mind her reading anything. I found a free-with-a-mag copy of a Shopaholic book which I passed her this morning, because she has seen the movie. Garbage, in all likelihood, but I was pleased she was enthusiastic. She lost interest after two chapters because it had the temerity to divert from the film

Reading has been such a constant in my life, to an obsessive level, that I am lucky I'm her mum rather than dad, otherwise I'd be doubting her genetics...

snickersnack · 08/08/2009 20:57

I had wide-ranging and totally uncensored reading tastes as a child/teenager. I bitterly regret reading Salem's Lot aged 12 because it terrified me for weeks. And I still regret the day I picked up American Psycho which actually did make me vomit.

I wouldn't stop them reading anything. I'd strongly suggest they didn't read certain things unless I felt they were able to deal with it.

itwascertainlyasurprise · 12/08/2009 15:55

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

linz76 · 12/08/2009 16:45

Pretty ponies, I must agree with you. When the wind blows completely freaked me out, and led to me joining CND at the age of twelve. Yes, I was a rather po-faced,pompous tweenanger...

magazinefiend · 15/08/2009 14:52

Remember getting hold of 'lace' as a young teenager (Judith Krantz? sirley conran? can't remember) wouldn't want mine reading that mainly because it was crap. Also very frightened by pet Cemetary at that age. Our babysitter left something called 'Effigies' around too, which I picked up aged 10- it was very torrid horror. Have never seen it since. I think it took Salems lot to actually give me nightmares at that age.

paddington21 · 12/09/2009 20:43

i certainly was never stopped reading anything when i was growing up. my mum was a massive bookworm, i was also taught to read fluently before i went to school.

i would not want my dc to read 'when the wind blows' or twilight as its blooming awful. i have to narnia scared me as a child but i also threw up with fear watching bambi when i was 4- oh dear!

Builde · 03/11/2009 10:05

I'm not sure that newspapers are that suitable. I used to read my parents papers (The Times) from about 12 and lots of stuff give me lots of things to think about. Images of dead people, starving children and miscarried babies...not good for a twelve year old.

And I still think about some of my godmother's Amnesty International material now.

Pinkglow · 03/11/2009 11:54

Unless somethings really scary I cant see myself 'banning' anything, I loved naria, enid blyton and judy blume before becoming a big fan of Anne Rice in my teens but hey at least I was reading.

My brother never read anything at home ever, then when he was about 9 I brought him the first two harry potter books which he loved. Once he had read all the harry potter books he then started on the hobbit and other fantasy books. So I cant slag off those books.

GooseyLoosey · 03/11/2009 12:13

Snickernack - I was going to say American Psycho. It is the only book I have ever read that I found truely sickening and which I thought should not have been allowed to be published. I threw it out and would not allow another copy in the house - ever!

UnquietDad · 03/11/2009 12:19

I was rather surprised to see Dahl's "Switch Bitch" in the new Book People catalogue advertised as a book for "young people". It's definitely more one of his "dirty old bugger" books... It isn't exactly The BFG!

Miggsie · 03/11/2009 12:24

Anything by Brett Easton Ellis.
It is so hopeless and self nullifying.

Oh and "It" by Stephen King. Because It comes back...never got over the man who committed suicide rather than face It again. And I have read most Stephen King. "Rose Madder" was a real indictment of domestic abuse and quite horrible being in the mind of an abuser...yuk yuk.

"I Claudius" is something that needs context and a degree of maturity as well.

DD is currently on the Famous 5, they are of their time, and not great literature, but she is lapping up the idea of secret passages and saving the day. She is 6!
She is also reading "Indian in the Cupboard", I have had to get a book from the library about Native Americans so she can understand some of the references!

nickelbang · 03/11/2009 12:30

i have to say, although I do agree with this thread because I can see your point (and ooh, some of the books I agree with!!) I think once they're old enough to realize what's fiction, then anything should go.

I wouldn't give anything classed as an adults' book to a child under 14, but after that then they should be allowed to read anything at all.

I speak from the experience of being the precocious teenager who read the most godawful rubbish (Jilly Cooper etc) but had no interest in sex until much later than her peers. Sometimes I think that a little bit of TMI fiction puts the youngsters off sex

oh, but no person in the world, at all, should read the Da Vinci Code. that's really pushing it.

MimieD · 18/01/2010 21:46

American Psycho is one of the few books hidden on the loft... I read it for uni about 17 years ago and can still vividly recall the torture scenes....

KAEKAE · 16/04/2010 22:54

My son is just over two and loves a book.

Anyway, I won't discourage him from reading anthing, although I won't be handing him a Stephen King just yet. Of course if he picked up Jordan's book (not now of course) I wouldn't be overjoyed about it but if he wants to have a flick through that sort of crap I am not going to get worked up over it.

gremlindolphin · 24/04/2010 21:48

I read everything I could get my hands on when I was younger and the only thing I wish I hadn't read was one of the Flowers in the Attic books. There was a girl starving a dog to death so it learned how much it needed her. Horrible horrible, it disturbed me so much that it has stayed with me for some reason.

thumbwitch · 24/04/2010 21:53

The Rats and The Fog - I read these far too early for my peace of mind.

LittlePushka · 06/08/2010 00:50

I agree with Miggsie...What's wrong with Enid Blyton?!! I remember really looking forward to reading the next of the secret seven books when i was about to finish the last one. Ripping yarns!

reptile · 12/08/2010 07:41

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. I cannot believe how many people have said to me that this is an approriate introduction to the Holocaust for children. A stupid book that nobody should read.

elkiedee · 13/08/2010 11:08

What an interesting discussion, but why have separate areas for Book Club and Adult Fiction, and why do many threads here really belong in Adult Fiction?

I read a Harold Robbins aged 12 and several Jackie Collins soon after. I also read Twopence to Cross the Mersey quite young, and Mary McCarthy's The Group aged 14. I remembered there being a detailed account of getting contraception but an awful lot of stuff went right over my head.

PMSL at some of the other things people have mentioned.

I just hope my sons grow up to love books, and am sorry that I don't have a daughter to read my Noel Streatfeilds etc.

Armi · 11/09/2010 23:22

'The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. I cannot believe how many people have said to me that this is an approriate introduction to the Holocaust for children. A stupid book that nobody should read.'

Whilst I don't agree that it's a 'stupid book that nobody should read', I do think TBitSP is rather too often cheerfully recommended as a good read for children/young adults. I'm an English teacher and I have real difficulty with it. We read it with Year 8, but I'm always uneasy about it; I know young people should learn about the holocaust, but find TBitSP absolutely horrific - it upsets me terribly. The kids seem to cope with it quite cheerfully, though.

LizHF · 15/09/2010 11:29

OMG! can't believe you read Cujo as a child! That definitely would have given me nightmares.. That would give me nightmares now! I recently read 'We need to talk about Kevin' and that scared the bejesus out of me - definitely not one for the DC!

Liz