Writer's Block: Forbidden Reading

[deltamiss]

[Error: unknown template qotd]

In 1965 I was sixteen years old and in the hospital for a minor surgical procedure. A friend brought me some magazines and a couple of novels to read. One of the novels was Peyton Place. My mother almost had a stroke when she saw it and promptly told me it was totally unacceptable. I promised to give it back to Delores the next day but I stayed awake most of the night reading it first. I have no idea why Mama didn't just take the book; that's what I would have done. ;)

Comments

[vocalista001.livejournal.com]

Love Story

(Made me laugh that we have the same stack of books!)

[deltamiss.livejournal.com]

Hahahahahaha! We DO have the same stack of books! :D

Ah, yes. Love Story. By the time it came out, I was in my third year of college. Mama had stopped censoring my reading by then. LOL!

My mother

[gracehatter.livejournal.com]

encouraged us to read all books but I remember being in 4th or 5th grade and wanted to buy "To Kill A Mockingbird" from the school book fair AND they made me bring a note from home saying I was allowed to buy it! In answer to your question tho, True Confession, True Crime type magazines and their ilk were strictly off limits...needless to say whenever any of my sisters or I got our hands on one it was read under the covers and completely dogeared!

Re: My mother

[deltamiss.livejournal.com]

It's funny, but by 1965 I'd already read Gone With the Wind, Rebecca and To Kill a Mockingbird several times, and Mama knew it. I guess she'd heard horror stories about PP, though. :/

I never read any of the true crime magazines. Strange how publications go in and out of vogue.

[gracedlace.livejournal.com]

OOooohhh...Love Story, and Mr. and Mrs. Bojo Jones. Second book was about a teen pregnancy. I had to make a paper book cover for it so that Mom wouldn't wonder. Ha!

Too funny, LS. Brings back memories, doesn't it?

[deltamiss.livejournal.com]

I don't remember the Jones book at all. Strange.

Yes, it certainly does. Shortly after PP, Mama gave up on censoring my reading. She belonged to Doubleday Book Club, and I was allowed to choose the book of the month. That put a quietus on the censorship. LOL!

[sandypfeff.livejournal.com]

In my early years of teaching, Mr. and Mrs. Bojo Jones was a favorite among my freshman and sophomore girls. Another book that some parents found shocking was Go Ask Alice, which was about drug use. At the time the book was rumored to be a true story, but later it was revealed to be entirely fictional.

[pondhopper.livejournal.com]

The classic: Catcher in the Rye.
:D
Mr. and Mrs. BoJo Jones, too.

[sandypfeff.livejournal.com]

I don't recall my parents ever censoring anything I read, but our high school principal certainly did. I worked in the office for him when I was a senior, and he would go around study halls confiscating books that he deemed scandalous or inappropriate. He came in one day with a stack of Robert Ruark's Something of Value about the Mau Mau uprising in Africa. I had a copy hidden inside of my notebook, and that's the way I read it in the office when I had finished all my work.

Another "shocking" book I read was Evan Hunter's Blackboard Jungle when I was a freshman in high school. Paperback books at that time often had salacious covers to entice more people to buy them. Although my parents never censored my reading, my dad did NOT want me listening to Elvis Presley. I had to hide his records in my underwear drawer and play them when Daddy wasn't home.

[deltamiss.livejournal.com]

The only book Mama EVER said anything about was PP. I read all sorts of books that I checked out of the public and school libraries that she never even questioned. Plus, the Doubleday Book Club offered many books that the libraries didn't have.

I remember Blackboard Jungle! I think I'd like to read that one again.

Hahahahaha! Elvis! Mama was a HUGE Elvis fan so we listened to him a LOT. She even signed her name on the wall surrounding his estate in Memphis once. Daddy never said anything about him because his mother thought Elvis hung the moon, too. ;)

[montain-mama.livejournal.com]

I never hid books I read. My parents didn't really pay attention to what I was doing unless it was something my mother deemed embarrassing to her. If I was reading I was alone somewhere thus not embarrassing or bothering her. I remember loving Perry Mason novels. I literally consumed them. I would check out several at a time from the library.

[deltamiss.livejournal.com]

My mother was a reader, but my dad wasn't. Oh, he read newspapers and National Geographic and his Sunday School lesson for the week and the Bible (every day), but he never really read books. He does now more than he used to, but I think that's because he is getting older and slowing down a bit. Anyway, I said all that to say that Mama never discouraged me from reading. She always thought it was a good thing...except for PP. :D

I read anything I could get my hands on. Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and the classics. Little Women made a HUGE impression on me when I was about ten. After that, it was Katie Bar the Door! :D

[torainfor.livejournal.com]

My ma told me I couldn't read Are You There, God? It's me, Margaret. But if she'd known half of what went on in a typical Spider Robinson book, she wouldn't have worried about Judy Blume.

[deltamiss.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't remember if I ever censored my girls or not. Melanie read constantly; Maureen didn't enjoy reading until college. Melanie probably read some iffy things, but Maureen didn't read at all. I read to her. :D

[bojojoti.livejournal.com]

I was never censored or monitored with my reading, and I read everything. I didn't censor our children's reading, but I did read what they were reading in case there was anything we needed to discuss.

[deltamiss.livejournal.com]

PP is the only book Mama ever said anything about, but I think that was because of all the hoopla surrounding it.

[jazzyglo.livejournal.com]

It was Peyton Place for me, too. Luckily, my mom never found it. :)

[deltamiss.livejournal.com]

Hahaha! Compared to some other stuff I read, PP was tame! :D