Spotlight Sunday: Is There A YA Book You’ve Read That You Wouldn’t Let Your Child Read?

When the four of us are together, in person or via the magic of the internet, the conversations almost always come back to books. We love them. We love the people who write them, the people who publish them, and the people who read them. In fact, we have so many feelings about books that we wanted to find a way to share our conversations with you! This is the third week of our new feature, hosted by Fiction Fare (Erin & Jaime) and Swoony Boys Podcast (Kassiah & Meg). Spotlight Sunday is about ALL things bookish. Each week we’ll post a topic, we’ll start the conversation by telling you some of our thoughts, and then it will be your turn to sound off in the comment section.

This week we want to talk about …

Welcome to a new week of Spotlight Sunday, hosted by Fiction Fare (Erin & Jaime) and Swoony Boys Podcast (Kassiah & Meg), where we dish about ALL things bookish. Each week we’ll post a topic, we’ll start the conversation by telling you some of our thoughts, and then it will be your turn to sound off in the comment section.

Have a topic you’d like to discuss on Spotlight Sunday? Fill out the form here.

Is there a YA Book that You’ve Read that You Wouldn’t Let Your YA-aged Child Read? Why?

Kassiah: Yes! There are a few books that come to mind that I wouldn’t want my impressionable young daughter to read. Geez, that makes me sound like I’m a seventy-year-old puritan or something. Whatever. The one that comes to the forefront of my mind is Twilight, which is pretty shocking, I think. My daughter, who is 14, has begged me to let her read this, but I just won’t. No matter how much we like to pretend that the bookish world is real life (and let’s face it, for us, it is), the fact of the matter is that the guy who repeatedly tells you he’s dangerous and to stay away from him isn’t actually going to turn out to be a sparkly vampire with higher morals than the Pope. And I don’t want my daughter to think otherwise.

I do think it depends on the kid and their maturity, though. I wouldn’t let my daughter read some things, but my sons are definitely less naive, and I would have no qualms about them reading pretty much whatever they want.

Erin: GAH – have you heard of the book The Kingdom of Little Wounds? I started this one and had to set it aside for a bit. I will definitely pick it back up but can’t believe that this one is rated YA. There are so many things in this book that make me wonder who actually determined the category on it. There are forced sexual situations, mutilation, and disease. While it may be a great book (I don’t know yet as I haven’t finished) as I was reading, I couldn’t really figure out who would let their child read this book.

Kassiah: I remember you telling us about this book in a podcast episode, Erin. I definitely want to know your thoughts if/when you finish it–it’s on my TBR but I’m not sure I can handle it.

Jaime: I remember that one too Erin… hmmm I don’t know that even knowing how lenient I am with my child that I’d let him pick that one up based on what I’ve heard. But man, this is a tough question. I don’t ever want to limit his chance to experience these worlds, but I also think that I already let him read up from his age group right now and I’m okay with that. However, I do think that there are some things I would feel uncomfortable with him reading at certain ages. The first book that came to mind when I read this question was The Hunger Games. Despite the amazing story and journey of the characters there is a lot of violence and I don’t know that I would want him experiencing that too early I could see him maybe reading that around 14-15 but if he showed an interest in reading it earlier than that, we’d definitely talk about it and maybe even read it together. I’m hoping he wants to start reading Harry Potter soon… is 8 too young lol?

Meg: I think I’m going to be the oddball here. I grew up with a mom who was a Middle School librarian. Because of her job, and her personal beliefs about books, I was never censored from what I could read. I read a lot of the things that were banned from the library and probably a lot of things that weren’t “age appropriate” or at least maybe not for everyone. I look back on these books with a lot of fondness, not because they all turned out to be my favorites, but because they brought about some amazing conversations with my mom. She used so many of them as teachable moments and I look forward to doing that with my boys. After saying all of that, I have to say, every parent knows their kid best, some can handle what others can’t, so maybe when my boys are older I won’t feel the same. Only time will tell…

Jaime: LOL Meg, you’re not the oddball!! I think it’s definitely a chance to have conversations with you kids, and I think that a lot of what is censored in libraries isn’t necessarily what I’d limit my kid from reading to be honest. I think your mom and I should sit down and talk books!

Kassiah: I agree with Jaime, Meg, you’re not the oddball. I don’t want to censor, but like you said, parents know their kids best, and I just don’t think one of my kids could handle the same things I read when I was her age. My grandma gave me all of VC Andrews’ books when I was in middle school! LOL

Now that you’ve read some of our thoughts, let us know what you’re thinking in the comments below! We’ll be back next week with a brand new topic and lots more to talk about.