What did you read that would have upset your parents had they known?
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1LisaCurcio
2mckait
No dad around to care, so I had free reign.
:P
3aviddiva
4LA12Hernandez
5mckait
The trashy novels were few and far between though, as they grew up going to the library every week, and having all the classics on our own shelves, and hearing them read to them... and eventually reading them on their own. These days, when all of my kids are in their 30's, it is amazing how often we read the same books. It is also a little funny when we disagree on them :)
I read more than they do, I probably read as much in a year as all four of them combined, but then.. they have much more interesting and busy lives than I do. My youngest son comes closest to being a voracious reader...
6loriephillips
edited for touchstone
7mckait
as far as I remember, I never took one childs book out of the local library...
no one seemed to are, so I must have chosen well, or they really didn't care. I did read through my elementary and high school library too, though.
8LisaCurcio
As to the public library, at that time there was a section for "young people" at the Chicago Library Branch, and we had special library cards based on age. If the card would not let you have a book, you did not get the book. Since I always rode my bike with the basket big enough to carry the full limit of books we were allowed to check out, there was no adult to check out a book for me if the librarian would not let me do it.
9NeverStopTrying
The only book I got into trouble with my Mom about was one my grandfather had given me. It was about ballerinas, I assume it was some kind of tacky-tasteless and she gave it away, never considering to hold onto it for me just because of who gave it me. He had intended well. Boo. Hissss.
10nohrt4me
Mom never curtailed my reading, though she sometimes made acid comments about "that trash," like the National Lampoon subscription in the early 70s.
Actually, the mag had gone downhill by that time, but I wouldn't admit it.
She did ban TV shows she thought were stupid. We were not allowed to watch Bigtime Wrestling, the Billy Graham Crusade, horror movies, soap operas, "Divorce Court," "Petticoat Junction," "Green Acres" or "The Honeymooners" reruns, the latter because there was too much bickering (which always made my brother and me laugh b/c my folks bickered, and still bicker, endlessly).
She was in the hospital for two weeks when I was 12, and Dad gave us free reign of the TV. We had pancakes and sausages every night and pigged out on mindless TV afterwards.
It was great!
11inkdrinker
12DromJohn
"How dare you read that evil man who said those nasty things about us."
My grandmother was raised in Starkeville, Mississippi, and graduated from Mississippi A&M around 1906, which may help classify "us". I never saw her mad about anything else, and I haven't met anybody else who remembers her being mad. But Faulkner did it.
13lbradf
14bobmcconnaughey
15theaelizabet
16usnmm2
17LisaCurcio
18usnmm2
I always was (and still am) a bit of a radical, when it came to book censoring.
I remember a very uncomforatable time while I was in the Navy and reading (openly) The quotations of Chairman Mao or better know as "The Little Red Book". I still think that is why I didn't make 2nd class (e-5) my first time around. But no regrets, would have read it again just to prove a point.
19Booksloth
20bobmcconnaughey
#16 - both are classics, seriously. Marx, like everyone else, wasn't much of a prophet, but he was an amazingly astute social analyst. Whether talking about the position of women in 19th C capitalist society or the whole concept of alienation from work, he was original, brilliant and often dead on the money.
"Determinism" whether historical, geographical, religious, political doesn't work. I suspect one reason it was SO popular among 19th C social thinkers in general was that it was viewed as bringing a system analogous to Newtonian physics to human affairs.
Never read the "little red book" though.
21tloeffler
22PhaedraB
I do remember Dad wouldn't let me read The Egyptian after we saw the movie on Saturday Night at the Movies, but I found it somewhere in the house and read it anyway.
Under the mattress was the 1964 issue of Playboy that contained the interview with the Beatles, and the sleazy/semi-porno novel that had been confiscated from a cousin of my friend Henrietta's, and then swiped by Henrietta from her dad's dresser drawer and passed around to the rest of us.
I went through all the Bond novels in the seventh grade, with a little John Le Carré thrown in. Dad knew about the spy novels, but not that I had found all the Playboys and nudist magazines down in the basement years before.
23mckait
and they made some really good choices! They are all still
readers today so I feel like I made a good choice.
24Booksloth
25mckait
and yes.. something went right, whatever it was. I do take some credit, but I suspect we had a touch of luck involved too :)
26tloeffler
I take a LOT of the credit for my boys, but I am fully aware that there was more than a touch of luck involved!
27krazy4katz
28staffordcastle
29ejj1955
My mother took two books away from me: Valley of the Dolls and Rosemary's Baby. I got them back and finished them, though, with the help of my older brother.
I'm pretty sure I read Hotel in the Reader's Digest Condensed Books version, so maybe the racier stuff was cut out.
Read Playboy at the house where I babysat (they were under the bed!).
Despite all this, I remained a pretty sheltered and naive girl until college.
30bobmcconnaughey
31ddelmoni
I could be wrong about this, but page 74 (or 94) was the first sex part??????
40 years later I remember that, but can't remember what I had for breakfast or where I put my car keys....go figure.
32nobooksnolife
33WildMaggie
34littleshell
The only censorship I recall was from librarians. When I was about 8 or 10, I could walk to a high school library that was open during the summer. I kept asking for Gulliver's Travels, but it was always "out". (I had seen a cartoon version.) It was years before I realized that it was probably the same woman each time and she just lied about it. I'm sure she meant well, but Why not just give it to me? At that age, I would have quickly lost interest if I had tried to read it. I still remember being frustrated all summer that I couldn't get it. My mom probably didn't realize what was going on--she would have told the woman to let me figure out for myself that I didn't understand it.
Another librarian pointed out that I had already checked out a book once before. I think she was quite puzzled when I told her that I knew that and wanted it again anyway, LOL.
After college, I heard a librarian refusing to let a girl take out a Judy Blume book without her mom's permission. At least that was more honest, and she would be given the book with permission. The same librarians would sometimes make you feel guilty about late books, but were also sweet and grateful when you opened everything so that checkout/checkin was easy.
All that being said, I love the librarians at my current county library. Some of them are sterotypical, but mostly about closing time--and who can blame them? If they notice a small late fine, they ask if you want to pay it now or next time. Can you tell some things haven't changed? ;-) Many of them are interested in what you're reading and will chat about them if there is no line behind you. I would have a much, much, smaller reading list without the library.
35lbradf
This is off the topic some, but I couldn't help but chime in with a great big "I second that!" with regard to the public library. My husband and I go nearly every week. I would be lost without them!
36fugitive
I seriously considered hiding that book under my bed, but then remembered that neither of my parents were readers and would never pick up any of the things they got me.
For the record, the other books in the set were The Sirens of Titan, Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five, and God Bless You Mr. Rosewater . My mom was inadvertently cool!
37lbradf
38tcw
so, when he pulled the penny collection box out and drew the magazines out from the floor of dad's closet, i pretend my amazement.
we were looking through the mags when i said, as if in awe, "wow!!!! ray Bradberry! LeNNY BRUCE!!!!!!"
he knew right then i was hopeless.
39AuntPetunia
My mother, who had been widowed young, never read a book in her life. Anything that was in print was considered worthy and a good thing, so censorship didn't exist. She would have been horrified if she had ever looked at her 12 year old's reading material. I am more concerned about my 17 year old's devotion to the 'Twilight' series - but perhaps she will move on, at least she is reading something.
40mckait
We have an introduce yourself thread in this group somewhere, if you would like to learn more about us and tell us about you :)
41Booksloth
42ejj1955
43unorna
44cataylor
45cataylor
46ejj1955
47KimarieBee
48theretiredlibrarian
My mom let me read pretty much anything, and our little town librarian had very few "teen" books, so I was in the adult section fairly early, 14 or so. I tried to check out Helter Skelter and Mrs. Edgar took the book out of my hand and told me she didn't think my mother would want me to have it. Next trip, Mom checked it out for me... although I'm pretty sure she had no idea what it was about.
49twistontheclassic
50jtelling
51jennieg
53cherylscountry
2.PSYCHOLOGY BOOKS - IE. LESBIAN AND GAY INFORMATION (STILL CONSIDERED A PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITION)
3.VALLEY OF THE DOLLS
4. THE FOX
5. THE CHRISTINE JORGENSON STORY
6. GUESS WHO IS COMMING TO DINNER
7. JAMES BOND BOOKS
8.SLAUGHTER HOUSE FIVE
9. SEVERAL BOOKS OF HARROLD ROBBINS
10. CATCHER IN THE RYE
11. SEVERAL JAMES BOND BOOKS
12. ETC. ETC.
I was on my own at the age of 16 as my family moved to Oregon and I remained in Calif. But several of these books I read in Jr. High and prayed my step-mother never found them.
54jmfonz52
55Booksloth
56BethyB
57ejj1955
58MmeRose
I had a regular babysitting job and read Candy in installments at their house. Also some horrid book for men about women - all I remember is the chapter explaining how to be positive a woman was a virgin.
The only book my parents took away from me was a Japanese book mostly about sex and sexual positions - don't remember the name. Otherwise, my reading wasn't censored, except that the only punishment that really worked on me was forbidding all recreational reading. But I got around that - extra credit book reports! I was a smarta** kid.
59Booksloth
61BethyB
62mamzel
63labwriter
Also, my dad would have come unglued if he knew I was reading Valley of the Dolls. I read that at a house where I had a babysitting job.
64ejj1955
My mother took Valley of the Dolls away from me, but I got it back. I don't know if she took it before or after I used my new-found knowledge to call my sister a "whore." I knew it was bad but didn't know what it meant . . . my mother was about as furious as I ever saw her get.
67labwriter
I remember my mother hiding The Feminine Mystique in her underwear drawer. I found it one day and remember thinking, why is she hiding this??? And from whom? I guess from my dad. So. . . what was I doing in her underwear drawer? Heh.
68mamzel
70DugsBooks
My very religious Grandmother, who lived with us and could not be provoked to say anything negative about a person except "she does not like some of their actions", found one of my HM's and told my Mom that she thought "I might be reading about demons". My mother mentioned this and I explained casually they were "comic books".
The issues were sporadic and seemed to never arrive at times however so I wrote the editors of National Lampoon who distributed the mag. paraphrasing one of their own articles {by Baba Rum Raisin?} in which I explained about the slow acting toxin soaked into the paper which was entering their bloodstream as they read the letter and asked when my missing issues would arrive so I could recommend an antidote.
Instead of being interviewed by the FBI for threatening letters {Nat. Lamp. needed to keep a low profile anyway and I was under 18} at Christmas I was handed a brown wrapper package by the postman who knocked at the door and asked for me. It contained the entire year of Heavy Metal in pristine condition. Nice job of slipping the zine past my mom.
71Booksloth
72mamzel
73DugsBooks
#70 & 71 I found some cover photos of interesting issues of National
Lampoon and Oz { never heard of Oz living here in the USA, they sure went
through a lot of lawsuits, although I am sure the Whole Earth Catalogue probably
mentioned it at some time}
1.jpg" width="322" height="450">
I seem to remember Nat. Lamp having a chart once in an issue showing how much
their newsstand readership went up when they had a seminude on the cover.