What Was Your First “Naughty” Book?

Taken from here.

Banned Books Week begins today, and it has me thinking about the power of literature and the importance of access to information. We like to think we’ve moved beyond the threats of censorship and book burning, of angry townspeople driving the progressive teacher out of town or blaming him for a tragedy a la Dead Poets Society. We like to think it, sure, but it’s an illusion that becomes difficult to maintain in the face of stories like this one, about a public school district in Missouri that banned books it deemed contradictory to the Bible. Separation of church and state, what?

I’m outraged, naturally, but Banned Books Week also has me thinking that telling children they can’t do something because it is dangerous is perhaps the most effective way to move them to do it. And that? That’s exactly how I came to read my first naughty book.

I was in sixth grade, and one of my girlfriends had copy of Flowers in the Attic purloined from her older sister’s room. She found it underneath the mattress, which was all the information we needed to determine that something about it must have been B-A-D. Add to that the look of horror on the school librarian’s face when I asked if she had a copy available, and the deal was done. The details are hazy now, but I remember passing the book back and forth, tucking it beneath my desk and between the pages of textbooks, and waiting until I was absolutely sure my parents were asleep before I pulled out the trusty flashlight and hid under the cover to read a few more pages before bed.

At the time, it was thrilling. I was getting away with reading something I was pretty sure none of the adults wanted me to read yet. (I should pause here, though, to applaud my parents for taking the “my kid reads above grade level” thing in stride and trusting me to pick my own books and ask questions when necessary). Now, I suspect my parents had my number all along and were indulging me because they understood the value of the clandestine read. And yes, I sort of wish that my first naughty book had been, I don’t know, slightly less cliché than Flowers in the Attic. Maybe something naughty in a subversive political way instead of one so overtly, well, overt.

Oh-so-predictable or not, that first sneaky reading experience has stayed with me. Do you remember your first secret/naughty/clandestine/banned book?

Related posts:

1. Banned Books Week 2008: fREADom!


2. In Praise of Banned Books, day 4: The Giver


3. In Praise of Banned Books, day 5: The Things They Carried