Friday, August 24, 2012

When Do You Start Reading Up?


That's my kid, Madi. She's in sixth grade now. I'm pretty sure she's reading Rick Riordan there. She's been going strong on MG books for a while now, probably since ... well, at least second grade. Sometimes it's hard to remember, life moves so fast. But anyway, I recently noticed that she was reading Eighth Grade Bites (Chronicles of Vladimir Tod, Book 1), by Heather Brewer. Her sister read it years ago, but I think she was in eighth grade at the time.

Now, I'm not the kind of dad who controls what his kids read. My opinion is that if a kid has a curiosity about a certain book, there is good reason they might be interested in it. Now, if she were wanting to read Lolita or Mein Kampf, I might be a little concerned, but in this instance, with her wanting to read what my understanding is a YA novel that is not too particularly dark or edgy, I can simply ask her sister, "do you think this is appropriate for her?" If her sister hadn't read it, I would probably just read it myself.

But this post isn't really about what we should allow our kids to read, I more so wanted to pose a question to our readers: when did you start reading up?

Personally, The Hobbit and then The Lord of the Rings were the first two (four) books I read, so while The Hobbit is somewhat a children's book, LOTR certainly is not, so I guess I started reading up right away. I did not get into the likes of Roald Dahl, Gary Paulsen, or Jack London until fifth or sixth grade. Then in middle school, I moved back to adult fantasy, and started reading spy and espionage books like Robert Ludlum and John Le Carre.

So what about you all? Were you aware of literary age distinctions when you were younger? Did you ever read above or below your supposed level by choice? Did you ever read adult novels as a kid? If so, what did your parents think of it? Did they know?

22 comments:

  1. This is such an excellent question--I wish I could remember it all a bit better! My father started reading CS Lewis and Tolkien to us when I was early- to mid-elementary school. I know I was reading Stephen King in junior high. Sneaking my mom's romance novels, too. The "sneaking" part should tell you how she felt about that.

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    1. That's exactly how I got started. Dad would read Tolkien aloud to all three of us.

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  2. The answer to this for me may be... never! Our library didn't allow us to check out adult books until we turned 17. You can bet I was there on my birthday to trade in my blue card for a yellow one, but I still read many more MG books than anything else. The first "adult" book I checked out of the public library was Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones, and around the same time a woman I babysat for loaned me some V.C. Andrews.

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    1. Nothing wrong with that! There are enough great MG books out there, one might never finish them all.

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  3. I went from Roald Dahl's Matilda to Go Ask Alice when I was about 13 and never turned back! :)

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    1. Now that is quite the jump, but it makes sense. 13 was about the age I skipped levels too.

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  4. I started reading adult books like James Mitchner in middle school. I read all the time so it was easy to move up quick. I'm like you. I let my daughter read up at a young age and she loved reading more that way.

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    1. James A. Michener? The guy who wrote all the epic sagas, like Alaska and Hawaii? Interesting.

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  5. Like Ms. Yingling, the library I grew up going to had separate cards for kids and adults. We had to have our parent's approval to check out anything other than kids books. (Which, oddly enough, also included paintings -- can you imagine a library today lending out framed paintings to patrons?)

    Both of my parents were avid readers (they still are, in fact). If I had any interest in any book, my mother was there to give her approval. (For a while I was reading plays, which were all catalogued in the Adult Non-Fiction section) After a while, my father started handing me some of his adult books that he thought I might like. I probably had expressed an interest in some of them, but that quickly spilled into reading adult mysteries and detective books.

    Very neat question, Matt.


    -- Tom

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    1. You both make a good point about libraries, and I'm pretty sure mine had the same rules. I don't recall where I got the books I read when I read up, but I can only assume they must have belonged to my parents.

      Thanks, Tom!

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  6. I read Gone With the Wind the summer before sixth grade and again the summer after eighth. All through middle school I read Agatha Christie (I can still see the exact place those books were located in the library). Really, my understanding of YA and the YA books available were not something that interested me. I'm glad there are so many other options for kids today. Hooray for kids who read up!

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    1. It's interesting too, because while I don't remember being aware of YA books when I was a YA, I really think both YA and MG have evolved (for the better) since then.

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  7. Like you and Caroline above, I was never aware of YA/MG when I was a kid. I remember going hogwild on Enid Blyton (Brit that I am), Hardy Boys, The Happy Hollisters, and Nancy Drew (my cousins sent them to me from America)when I was about 8 or 9. Then I jumped to Agatha Christie and Simenon (the Maigret books), then it was Ursula Le Guin and the Hobbit; John Le Carre and Graham Greene, followed by Dickens and the "classics." No wonder I was an English major!

    Great post, Matt, and congratulations for having such avid readers in the family!

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    1. Thanks, Mike. I think today would be such a wonderful time to be a young reader. I mean heck, I know it's certainly a wonderful time to be an adult reader!

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  8. I never read "kid" books. It was all adult sci-fi/fantasy starting in middle school. My kids certainly read above "grade level."

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  9. I feel like I read up quickly, almost entirely skipping MG. I didn't even read all that much YA. Instead I jumped right into adult epic fantasy and sci fi. In my late teens, I started reading more YA. And now I read MG as well... I'm not really sure what that means or says about me, but I don't feel like I suffered for having read adult books in junior high. Though I probably shouldn't have been reading Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey like I was... :/ ha

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    1. I think that's pretty common, Sara, especially considering that YA and MG weren't even what they are today before Harry Potter.

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  10. I started reading up somewhere in middle school but my heart was always with MG and YA so even though my friends were reading up I was totally hiding my Cynthia Voight and Judy Blume novels inside the covers of these grown up books like one might hide comic books. I confess I even hid my LOTR reading because all my friends had read them in 6th grade making my reading them in 8th grade seem very behind.

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    1. Feeling like you have to hide what you're reading is one of the saddest things in the world, but I understand where you're coming from, Carrie. I got made fun of for reading fantasy when I was younger.

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  11. It's so interesting that the experiences are so similar. I don't really remember being limited to what I could and couldn't read. I know I was reading Gone With the Wind and LOTR in middle school. Shakespeare soon after. And then I jumped right into epic sci-fi. I think as long as it wasn't titled "How to kill your siblings in cold blood" I was ok. ;)

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    1. It boggles the mind to think how many readers and writers have been shaped by LOTR.

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Thanks for adding to the mayhem!