The horror of your child reading inappropriate material

[pielady]

I've never been on Mumsnet before, but I have just had a terrible experience and felt I had to share as a warning to other parents. My 10 year old daughter is an avid reader and devours books by the box load. As she is very advanced for her age in terms of reading ability, I've always tried to be very careful about which books we let her read, often ploughing through them myself before I let her have them. Recently she has overtaken me and as a result I made a terrible mistake which will now haunt me forever. We have a wonderful Oxfam bookshop near us with a fantastic range of books. The other week we were in there stocking up and my daughter picked 4 books FROM THE CHILDRENS' SECTION. I had a check through before we bought them, read the backs etc - One of them was called 'City of Thieves' by David Benioff, the back blurb said it was a story about 2 boys on a life and death quest to find 12 eggs for the Generals daughter's wedding cake set against a backdrop of the siege of Leningrad. The reviews on the front said 'Funny' 'gripping', 'cinematic' etc etc - As it had come from the children's section I assumed it was in the same vein as Sally Gardner's fantastic novels 'I, Corriander' or 'The Red Necklace' or 'The Clockwork Three' which she had read and loved. Stupidly I didn't check it thoroughly enough and she read it.

It is an adults book, and not only that but a dark and disturbing one too - She got 2 thirds of the way through it before telling my husband that she was finding it a bit distressing. When we had a look to see what it was like, we were utterly horrified - Horrible, horrible imagary of war and deprivation, Nazi sex slaves - umpleasant scenes of a sexual nature - words like 'pussy' and 'cock' which had nothing to do with farmyard birds or cute kittens. Not much to totally horrify an adult, and I make no judgement on the quality of the writing - but for a 10 year old girl, a damaging experience.
We have always tried to be so careful to protect our children against inappropriate material on the telly, on the internet, and obviously books too - But this has just appalled us. I don't blame the Oxfam Bookshop, (although it obviously couldn't have happened in Waterstones), but I can't help thinking how great it would be if books had some kind of rating on the back that gives an indication of content - we do it with films, why not books? There was no clue on the back that the book was anything other than an exciting adventure. I'm not looking for someone to blame, obviously it was my fault, I bought the bloody thing, and I should have been more careful, but it was such an easy mistake to make - I can't take away that imagery from her now she's read it - just as you can't 'unsee' something horrible on the internet - I am devastated. I only hope she didn't really understand what she was reading, although as she's a bright little thing, I feel she would have worked it out. It's the worst feeling in the world to know that you have failed in your job to protect your precious child from knowing stuff they shouldn't. I don't feel any better for writing this, but I hope it might serve as a warning to other parents of precocious readers to take care - there are so many wonderful books out there for kids - take care you don't do whatt I did, and let something horrible slip through your net...

I think if you don't make a big thing of it she won't be damaged. Just tell her the book is a bit too old for her, you're going to put it away until she's bigger.

Maybe you could check out future reads from the charity shop on Amazon - both the synopsis and the reviews.

I've read 'City of Thieves' - it's a real stomach churner in places and would warn any adult against reading it 'cold' so to speak, I can only imagine how you feel about a 'minor' reading it.
It certainly shows the darkest side of Nazi occupation

I think it would be really difficult to categorise books in the same way as films, there are so many books published compared to films.

I hope your DD can get over her experience, maybe a trip back to the bookshop to warn them of the books content, perhaps they weren't aware either?

i would not blame your self too much and dont think it will have done any lasting damage. I will say I was reading, judy blume at 10 and jacky collins and flowers in the attick by 12.

I understasnd how you feel. my dd age 5 is an exceptional reader and I had left some quite grafic literature about victoria climbie and child abuse and witch craft laying around, reading as part of my degree. dd had read a very large chunck of this whilst I was cleaning upstairs one morning, she was very upset and totally understood what she had read. she has since forgotten about it though. no lasting damage

i also read flowers in the attic when i was around 11. i didint even remember that until now.

Thank you for all your comments. I hope you are all right and that she'll soon forget about it. I went into the Oxfam bookshop today to tell them what had happened - they were very apologetic, especially as the book had definitely been coded for the childrens' section, albeit for teenage readers which start at 13 - if that's considered suitable for a 13 yr old, can't help thinking our acceptance for nasty stuff seems to be way higher than it was when 'Flowers In The Attic' was doing the rounds - that seems like a fairy tale in comparison to 'City of Thieves'.