What books did you get steered away from/towards when you were younger?

[buyjupiter]

I thought this was an interesting point made in the discussion about YA audiences and why authors should try to make more of their stuff at the very least YA-accessible.

I had parents that were, in hindsight, actively involved in my reading choices. I knew where the acceptable boundaries were with reading, and I didn't stray too far out of what my parents had already read. I tended to read the classics of any genre when I was young enough for parental guidance to really matter, and I'm sure that if Anna Karenina had managed to make its way into my book bag at the library when I was 10, my dad would have said I should put it back. (Funnily enough, though, Dickens/Bronte sisters/Wilkie Collins/Arthur Conan Doyle never raised an eyebrow. And thinking about all the horrible life stuff/drug use in *those*...)

The two things that I remember being actively discouraged from reading were Kafka and Slaughterhouse Five. I was 12/13 at the time, so I snuck them out of my parent's library anyways. Now that I'm an adult, I can see that I was waaaaay too young to be reading either. It's not that the subject matter was over my head, but I didn't get why they were important authors.

I don't really recall being recommended anything in particular, except in a general sense. "You have to read the Belgeriad cycle." "You have to read Shannara, it's awesome". "You should read Harry Turtledove, you'll like him".

So, what things have you guys been recommended and/or advised against reading when you were young enough for subject matter to be a concern?

 

[GeekDavid]

Since my late mother got me my first copy of The Hobbit when I was laid up with a leg injury, that one really sticks out in my mind.

 

[Ireth]

My mom got me into reading Terry Pratchett, for which I'm eternally grateful. She started me off with Guards! Guards!, and from there I'm pretty sure I've read every Discworld book she owns at least once. She also bought me the first Harry Potter book for Christmas when I was ten, and I've bought and/or read the rest of them since. She continues to recommend books to me, not all of which I've ended up liking, but to each their own. I don't recall any she's actively discouraged me from reading, though to my memory she was as disappointed as I was with Gregory Maguire's Wicked and its sequels. They got a bit gratuitous with a lot of stuff.

 

[Steerpike]

My dad recommended all kinds of stuff to me: Tolkien, Leiber, Moorcock, Asimov, Heinlein, Matheson, King, Barker, Howard, Lovecraft, etc. etc.

I was never really steered away from anything.

 

[Jabrosky]

Back in my childhood, my mom would pick out books for us to read together before bed. Most of the time she selected books set sometime in the United States' past (my parents have always felt a strong passion for American history), and they tended to have mundane plots with more or less ordinary characters. To Kill a Mockingbird probably best exemplifies the type of book she would choose for us. She was also very fond of any book that won the Newbery medal.

Maybe this explains why I ended up hating American history* and mundane stories about ordinary people.

* Well, that and my parents dragging me through history museums every summer vacation.

 

[Devor]

My parents didn't take much interest in the books I read, except to sometimes say that I was too old for all the fantasy stuff and that they kept thinking I would grow out of it. I sure showed them.

 

[GeekDavid]

Back in my childhood, my mom would pick out books for us to read together before bed. Most of the time she selected books set sometime in the United States' past (my parents have always felt a strong passion for American history), and they tended to have mundane plots with more or less ordinary characters. To Kill a Mockingbird probably best exemplifies the type of book she would choose for us. She was also very fond of any book that won the Newbery medal.

Maybe this explains why I ended up hating American history* and mundane stories about ordinary people.

* Well, that and my parents dragging me through history museums every summer vacation.

I hated American History until my senior year teacher decided to flunk me for 2nd semester. I went to the local junior college and aced the "equivalent" course (which will tell you a lot about the HS teacher). The professor at the junior college made it a story, not an endless succession of dates and names to memorize, and sparked a love of American History that continues to this day.

 

[Svrtnsse]

When I was six or seven my dad read The Lord of the Rings to me as a bedtime story. He cut out the "boring" bits when there was too much conversation and discussion and talking of politics, but he stuck with the exciting parts with the battles and adventures and all that.

When I grew older I read quite a lot compared to other kids my age - to the point where my parents would nag at me to go out and play and be with the other kids and not just sit inside all the time.
My mother had rather specific opinions about what was appropriate literature and what was crap. At times it did feel as if everything I really wanted to read and enjoyed fit in the "crap" category, whereas things she approved of very either were either dull or childish (I still have a very soft spot for the moomins though).
Ironically, the worst kind of literature was fantasy. My mother was always horribly disappointed when I came home with another fantasy book I'd managed to save up to. She strongly disapproved of it as it was all made up and not real - she didn't understand it at all so of course it must be bad.

Now here I am. So much for parental guidance I guess...

 

[buyjupiter]

Maybe this explains why I ended up hating American history* and mundane stories about ordinary people.

* Well, that and my parents dragging me through history museums every summer vacation.

Funnily enough I had the same experience every summer, but I love history! Truth be told a lot of it was stuff focused on Native American cultures, or a history of railroads and the Chinese that were imported as labor, so the experiences were more about individual stories than "on this date such and such battle happened here".

 

[Steerpike]

I like TKAM

 

[Jabrosky]

Funnily enough I had the same experience every summer, but I love history! Truth be told a lot of it was stuff focused on Native American cultures, or a history of railroads and the Chinese that were imported as labor, so the experiences were more about individual stories than "on this date such and such battle happened here".

You had a much more fortunate experience than mine. My parents tended to fixate on the dead rich white male side of the equation. I will agree that the Native cultures are generally more fun to learn about.

I like TKAM

I wouldn't go so far as to say it was a bad book. My misgivings about it had more to do with the fact that my elders imposed it upon me. Somehow books are less fun to read when grown-ups force you to read them.

 

[buyjupiter]

Somehow books are less fun to read when grown-ups force you to read them.

This. Or if they make you analyze it to death, without realizing there is no right answer to what a person takes away from a book.

And, yes, I was very lucky to have the chance to learn about other cultures from a young age. If nothing else it instills a sense that there are no "right" ways to approach life and society, just lots and lots of not so great ones. Plus it's given me plenty of things to throw in the writing blender and see what comes out.

 

[Chilari]

My parents never really influenced what I read, but they certainly supported me in reading and would happily buy me books of any kind. In fact my first Gemmell book was one my mum picked out, knowing by then I liked fantasy and unaware of the violence and sex within it, at a time when I was probably a little too young for it (or at least, too innocent - I was a very sheltered, naive 14 year old).

I've read more widely than just fantasy, though most of the authors I've read outside fantasy are either because of school assigning them or because they were mum's books I borrowed when I'd run out of my own. Funny thing - I rarely read Dad's books, which are mostly crime dramas (in various modern and historical settings), but read a lot of what mum read, most memorably Joanne Harris - who I still read and whose books I buy as gifts for mum before borrowing them back for myself.