I want my kids to read. Period.

For that, I would suggest Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.

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I can remember my mother complaining to my dad that he shouldn't leave books like Michener's Caravans lying around where I could pick them up and read them, but she never told me not to read that or anything else.

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.

Jess, I think I am in agreement with you.

OMG, I loved Ghost Story.

my dad always wanted me to stop reading in the van on road trips and look out the window.

My mother and your father are related!--as much as an Indian man and a woman of German-English descent can be related. She'd take books away from me on vacation.

Our vacations frequently were an eight-hour drive away. My parents loved it when we'd read in the car. Before we got in the car, they'd always check to make sure we had enough books.

Freshman year in high school is when my books started to have the high body count I'm known for today. I remember "Forever" and "Go ask Alice" well, though.

When I was a kid I could read in the car for hours, but at some point during puberty my inner ears went wonky and supersensitive and now I get motion sick even reading on the subway. Unfair, I tell you!

One of my favorite memories is of reading the Harry Potter books out loud to my kids as we drove to and from softball tournaments. I read the first 5 out to them before CJ was old enough to read 6 and 7 on his own.

I don't get the impression Cornell West is saying his standards are a good thing.

The only version of Wuthering Heights I'm familiar with is Monty Python's semaphore version.

Did they break up that way?

In sixth grade Michael Baker took Are You There God, It's Me Margaret? off the "girls" shelf. And got busted reading it to his friends out loud. He had just gotten to a part about her panties (pronounced breathlessly, accompanied by gasps from all assembled) when the teacher rippped it out of his hands and gave him detention.

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.

I'm impressed you read the whole thing. My junior high had a copy passed around with the good parts dog-eared and underlined. I didn't read the entire thing until a few years later and thought she was idiotic for thinking a mole was cute.

I may have been too young when I read Clan of the Cave Bear. I was deffinately too impressionable. I reread it recently and and realized to my horror that about 90% of my kinks come directly from that book.