Buffy ,'Lessons'
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
Do libraries just let kids borrow anything?
All in all, I think I'd rather my kid had the freedom to read whatever s/he wanted whether I knew about it or not. I'd also like to have a relationship with my children where they don't feel they have to hide books from me, but lord knows I didn't bring the Anne Rice porn I was reading in high school to the dinner table either.
I just remembered why I love it.
I love it because of the narrative structure. I dig that the story comes together from various people's accounts, and sometimes there are nested narratives, and it's just good times.
I read The Happy Hooker when I was about 10. It was passed around school. On later reflection, I was probably a bit young for it.
The only book my mom ever banned me from reading was Forever. Of course, one of my junior high friends had a copy and it went through our entire group within a few weeks.
Ahahahaha! Yes, I remember this early adolescent milestone.
When I was in middle school, the book being passed around was It (Stephen King). I had a few passages read aloud to me and it was enough to turn me off ever reading the whole thing.
The only "scandalous book that lots of people read" in my high school (that I knew about) was Go Ask Alice.
After all the fuss, it was a bit of a letdown to finally read it.
My mom tore out the X-rated pages from Straub's Ghost Story when I pointed them out to her and asked questions, but gave me the rest of the book to finish reading as she had no objection to me reading about murder cover-ups, vengeful ghosts, and Gregory & Fenny Bates.
Go Ask Alice and Forever were the scandalous books I remember reading in middle school.
I want my kids to read. Period.
In MEME news - I hate writing self evaluations.
The only book that I can remember my mother ever telling me I couldn't read was Jephte's Daughter by Naomi Ragen. I borrowed it from my sister, and my mother took it away from me after I'd already read several chapters. I have no idea why that particular book was not allowed, since I'd read plenty of books with much more graphic sex and violence by that time.
Similarly, I wasn't allowed to watch the movie Murder in the First. Only movie I was ever told I wasn't allowed to watch.
I hate writing self evaluations.
See if Matt's mom still has the X-rated pages from Ghost Story that you could submit instead....