Over on twitter there is a tweet going around about a #librarian who suggests a #YA #book for a 10 year old kid who has picked up a #StephenKing book. It is a cool story about a knowledgeable and sensitive librarian who suggests the kid start both books and then decide which one he wants to borrow (he picks the YA book).

“I can’t believe some people put an age limit on #reading!” Someone replied.

But… Junior and YA books exist for a reason and sometimes adult fiction is too much or too hard or too disturbing for younger readers and - like what happens in the original tweet - an alternative may be better!

I don’t think kids should be restricted to certain books that have been deemed ~appropriate~ but like… I think it might have been nice if someone had warned kid me that the “goosebumps” series was NOT sufficient preparation for reading #ChristopherPike’s “The Cold One”.

If I could go back in time I would gently take that book out of my 12 year old hands and say “Leelee, if you read this you will have nightmares and some of the imagery will be seared into your brain for all time. There are a LOT of other books, let’s find something else ok?”

It’s all very well to say “well if the book is too advanced, they’ll just put it down!” But reading part of a very disturbing story can be just as distressing so smol child will keep reading the book about an evil twin conceived when her mother died during sex but dad kept going, who grows up and kills a bunch of people and marries her own dad and fucks her twin brother and then it turns out that the book ends on a cliffhanger and the sequel is never ever published.

And I just… I wish you could un-read a book.

To be fair if I read this book at any point in my life I may wish to have un-read it but I think if I were older it wouldn’t have been baked in to my nightmares for all time, you know?