As a voracious reader, I was gifted books often. As we know from the recent Kids and Family Reading Report, 91% of kids age 6-17 say “my favorite books are the ones that I have picked out myself”—and as I started to pick out my own books, some distinct trends emerged, one being that I loved scary stories.
I devoured the Goosebumps series in middle school; R.L. Stine couldn’t write them fast enough. I guess an adult mentioned to me that if I liked horror, I’d enjoy Stephen King, so I immediately dove into his work by picking up a copy of it IT. In middle school. The end result? I’m still a Stephen King fan, but I’m *also* still terrified of clowns.
We’ve all probably read a book at a young age that we just weren’t ready for – even if we didn’t realize it at the time. Here are some of the books that made an early impression on – or went over the heads of! – our OOM bloggers.
Morgan: “I read Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret in third grade because I found it in my classroom bookshelf and needed something to read. So much of it went over my head that, when I read it again two years later, it was like an entirely different book!”
Julia: “When I was in sixth grade we were assigned to read Jean M. Auel’s The Clan of the Cave Bear, which not only included quite a bit of age-inappropriate subject matter, but arguably had very questionable academic value. My grandparents were horrified.”
Mike: “This is so embarrassing - I totally stole a copy of my grandmother’s copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover when I was in third grade because it was on the ‘high shelf,’ which, of course, meant ‘go read it when no one is looking.’”
Kristen: “I read Go Ask Alice at age 12, which my mom actually bought for me (to be fair, the suggested age on the book is 12 and up!). I grasped most of the story, but there were definitely some 'mature' details that went over my head. I remember enjoying the book and didn’t realize how controversial it was until one day when I was reading it at summer camp and a counselor confiscated it from me!”
It’s true that something special happens when a child finds the right book—even if, as was the case for some of us, we found those books a few years too early! Share your own love for reading at #sharepossible, and find out how you can help us Open a World of Possible for kids.
