Thread of assistance for people who find it tricky remaining breezy about the books their dc choose in the library.

[Slubberdegullion]

I want to be breezy.

Reading is great right? Any sort of reading yes? Even books about puppies and unicorns and princess unicorns and boarding schools for unicorn princesses? And RAINBOW FAIRIES. may curses rain down upon you you tiny little winged bastards

I want the benign smiling face of library joy, not the Argh! Nooo! Really? Face, with the hopeful fingering and glances at the Michael Morpogos.

Tips gratefully received.

shagmundfreud you have reminded me of one of my 13yo self's favourite books, this eye opening sex slave fantasy romp which I found in the school library, no less I am rofling at this line from the Wiki page: "he employs some "Beklan" vocabulary for honorifics, natural objects, and sexual terms; the last "allows adults to leave the book within reach of children"". Err, no it doesn't! I learned a lot from that book.

Shagmund - what a corker of a book! I have been shaking with laughter at the Good Reads review. Love the quoted dialogue!!

I too am a librarian and I too have read more than my fair share of tat. As a child and as an adult. I have a creditable set of qualifications so it can't have been all bad! Agree with the poster who wrote that your reading is so very personal.

DS1 (6.5) loves Astrosaurs and Mr Gum. I remember very little of what I did read aged 6-10. Harriet the Spy. Blyton. Arthur Ransome. Arabel's Raven. In the 70s there were no glittery books for girls. We got short hair, duffle coats and cars to play with!

Sorry, I refuse to accept there is any literary worth whatsoever in those fucking fairies. I really can't.

Horrid Henry I actually rather like. It becomes apparent, really, seeping round the edge, that Francesca Simon is literate (she has a new stand-alone which is all about Norse myths). They are formulaic but I am quite charmed by them. Also by the fact that they appeal, by definition, to the Perfect Peters who are actually reading books rather than being Horrid. One reads them with a thrilled sense of transgression, as a result.

Lady Chatterley, PurplePidgin, is tripe . Doesn't Mellors go on about his ex's vagina dentata when he's not sticking flowers in Connie's (shudder) 'maidenhair'?

I will also defend Horrid Henry. Formulaic to some extent, but Francesca Simon is a genuine human being rather than a committee (I heard her on Desert Island Discs, it must be true) and it shows.

Any reading is great! Macdonald's signs, cereal packets, anything. But the more I hate a book, the more my kids love it. Sigh. So pretend to LOVE Rainbow Fairies - they'll soon get bored and move on. And what would happen if you said ' the one thing we're absolutely not going to read tonight is Michael Morpurgo' ...

Ok, I'm now grateful that DSs are unlikely (I say unlikely) to go through the Rainbow Fairy phase (DS1, nearly 4, does have a massive thing for a storybook called 'The Dollshouse Fairy' at the mo, but I encourage it because it's lovely, beautifully illustrated and has made him want to play with his gender-neutral ELC dollshouse.).

BUT. Have you ever had to read Thomas the blinking Tank Engine books out loud and mean it? If you think the newer ones, the little square jobs, are bad, try reading the original series by Rev Bastard Awdry. They are fecking unreadable. Pages and pages of inconsequential, plotless farting about, interspersed with mechanical gobbledigook. What a crashing nerd the man must have been.

My DD went through the fairy, Magic Kitten, Animal Ark books. To expose her to more weighty material I read a bedtime story to her long after she was an independent reader. We read Stig of the Dump, Secret Garden, Tom's Midnight Garden, Goodnight Uncle Tom and many others. At a suitably exciting part each night I would say that would be all for that day. she could not take the suspense and read ahead of where we left off. Now, at the age of 11 she will tackle all sorts of books. crafty eh!

I Love Maia! I remember being thoroughly shocked it was by the man who wrote Watership Down though
I tend to just let/will let the DCs read whatever they like though - I was always allowed to read anything I got my hands on (Kyle Onstott and Lance Horner at 7 anyone?!) - I think my parents just thought it would go over my head, or I would ask what things were/meant and it more or less worked. I did terrify myself when I read The Fog at about 9 or 10 though - I think it was a fortnight before I dared sleep :( I was petrified! but other than that I don't think I've been "psychologically scarred for life"

Rainbow fucking fairies.

I had almost expunged them from my memory. I remember reading half a page to dd one night and breaking off mid sentence "gosh, dd, those two girls do gasp a lot don't they?"

Then there are the pet fucking fairies, the party fucking fairies, not to mention the bloody prosthetic fucking fairies.

I have to go and lie down. Peel me a grape, manslave.

Hmm my early teen reading was Harold Robbins. Took me ages to work out what a dyke was as my only frame of reference was geography!

coolasacucumber I managed to work out the dykes but somehow thought that giving head was something to do with taking drugs, must have been a drugs & sex session in that or a Jackie Collins that confused me!

douche bag was a bit confusing too...

I'll agree with those defending Horrid Henry,

When I read them the one about the Nativity Play I was laughing out loud as I read it. I also liked the posh restaurant when he had the snails.

For reading out loud, I think funny books are the best.

The problem with those fairy books is that there are so many of them, all the same, and most of the girls go through the fairy phase before they can read the books themselves (mine were in nursery and reception), so you have to read them out loud.

Years and years ago (must have been in the early 60s I think as my mum was still living at home), my granny (a nursery school headmistress) went to a meeting and defied her brother (primary school headmaster and labour councillor) to stand up and speak out against a proposed ban on Enid Blyton in the authority's schools. She said what became my parents' mantra 'as long as kids are reading, it really doesn't matter WHAT they are reading - let them read what they love and they will grow up loving to read'.

She passionately believed this and so did my mum and dad (also both teachers), I think it must have worked as I read anything I could lay my hands on as a child/teenager and went on to study obscure foreign literature at university. Admittedly I now read mostly detective novels although some of them are set in ancient times so must be educational, right but I figure I've worked my way through more 'worthy' French and German literature than most native speakers so I'm due a bit of fun