When should children be allowed to read crime fiction? At what age did the members here start reading crime fiction?
When should children be allowed to read crime fiction?
At what age did the members here start reading crime fiction?
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i read nancy drew and famous five from a young age, but i was quite a precocious reader i had a jules verne phase around 9/10
Same here. Read them all. Practically lived in the library xx
My daughter is 11 and loves James Patterson teen murder books. She never loved to read until she found these
I was around 9/10 when I started reading Agatha Christie
Enid Blyton or the like from when they can read. SK a tad later.
I was about 8 when reading agatha christie
My experience. Enid Blyton from age 8. ( I won’t mention Goldilocks, Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel etc.. all have elements of crime).
I loved Lois Duncan books ‘ I know what you did last summer’ etc..
Real crime ( serial killer stuff) from about 12. Loved those Herbert Van Thal Pan horror books from about 12 years too.
Got today
So jealous.
I loved them! Pretty sick stuff to read when you are 12. ( 30 years ago). Hahaha.
Same here. @Catherine. I am trying to get em all xxx
Going to Google the ones I read…. xx
I remember lots of dismemberments and body parts been eaten. ?
Yeah . I want em all . Had em till my divorce ?
@Jennifer i had my kids’ shoe collection ( from first pair) and coin collection. ???
I remember I had these ones…
Aww stop it xxc
I was 10 when I read Agatha Christie.
Seven, my father’s pulp fiction (quite tame though, and I didn’t get the subtext).
I was reading Agatha Christie in my early teens. Having said that, depends on book and the fact that children are more grown up than they were 40 years ago!
Hans Kristen Anderson stories aside ? I read my Mums Agatha Christie books when I was about 8 or 9 along with my Dad’s Ellery Queen & Ed McBain books.
Around 10 I told my mum I had read everything worth reading from the children’s library!
I loved Enid Blyton, Willard Price, and The Hardy Boys books up to and around 10/11. I then found horror. SK, James Herbert and Shaun Hutson. Then Dean Koontz and Richard Laymon.
Do some people get on your nerves on her .with there posts . Just one person
@Jennifer hope it’s not me! ?
No its not xxxxx
Pm me
I used to enjoy reading the point crime and point horror books when I was younger, used to get them from the library
Me too! x
I remember getting them as well as looking at the true crime books and books on weird things like people who claimed they’d been reincarnated, and spontaneous combustion etc. I think I was a weird child lol
I had a bizarre fascination with true crime from being a kid. I had to sneak a book about the Kray twins into the house when I was about thirteen. I should have been a criminal psychologist!! x
I used to like reading history books too and learning about how people were tortured and executed in the Middle Ages lol. The first true crime book I ever owned was a Jack the Ripper book which I got when I was a teenager and I’m still fascinated my true crime now. It’s what encouraged me to start my psychology degree
I read Carolyn Keene at primary school, The Dana Sisters books. Then as I got older I moved on to James Patterson.
I started to read crime and horror books from when I was about 11…..an older cousin used to give the books she had read to my mum….but I would hide the ones I thought I would like and read them first lol
I started reading true crime at nine even though it made me shake.
Lynda La Plante binge after I watched Widows when younger.
Would Enid Blyton’s “Secret Seven” series count as crime fiction?! I was hooked from the age of about eight! ?
Loved these!
Did you ever read The Famous Five?
I think these qualify
@Jason I started on Famous Five books at age 10 moving onto Agatha Christie. I found an old edition of a Famous Five book only recently in a charity shop – couldn’t resist buying it ?
You should post a pic of the cover. I remember watching the television series in 70s & 80s
I started reading Point Horror and Horror High at age 13. Lots of them were serial killer thrillers.
@Emma loved Point Horror
Secret Seven, Famous Five, Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and Agatha Christie are all suitable for 8+ (6+ for some).
I was about 8 when I first found Stephen King & horror. I know some kids at 15 that are not mature enough for it. Instead of saying x age I would assess each kid and their ability to handle it. How appropriate it would be. My mum had many comments about allowing me free rein with books but then you look at those slating/judging and how things turned out. Books read by kids were by far the least issue of that lot xxx
I just had to look up when Windows came out to know when I started reading crime. I was 10!
Early teens for Agatha Christie.
I was so lucky that my mum let me read whatever I wanted and the kind ladies in our local library understood (and probably steered me away from really graphic writing).
Started with proper crime fiction and non fiction at around 10 I think
Agree with Jim Ody
Hardy Boys, Secret Seven, The Three Investigators , Famous Five at at primary school age.
I was 7 when I started reading adult books. I was a very advanced reader (my parents thought I was going to be some sort of child genius….oh well!) and I just read anything I could get my hands on including my mum’s Stephen King, James Herbert, Dean Koontz and my Dad’s true crime and disaster books 🙂
I read Nancy Drew in junior school but could watch juliet bravo etc before i was ten i wasn’t scared and started reading Agatha Christie in high school
I was about 13 when I started reading crime, some scared me thought not gunna lie ?
My daughter is 7 she loves the goosebumps books. She reads anything really. She can’t wait to read ‘IT’. She loves anything scary and to do with Halloween. X
I’ve had letters from 13 year olds who have read my books and worry that’s too young. Then again I read some pretty gruesome Tales of the Unexpected stories when I was thirteen…
Me too. I was reading Shaun Hutson, Graham Masterton, Richard Laymon and Clive Barker in my early teens 🙂 xxx
You were more hard-core than me! ?
🙂 xxx
Whenever they are ready for it.
I started with famous five, Nancy drew, Hardy Boys etc. By the time I was 10 I’d moved on to adult crime books
Me too
I was reading Ian Fleming’s James Bond when I was about 10 or 11. I had a very open minded librarian who encouraged me to read all kinds of books.
When she is grown up x
Agatha cristie maybe 13?
I was twelve when I read crime and punishment. It was assigned reading at Roxbury Latin. I never would have chosen it. I could not pronounce Fyodor Dostoyevsky.and was appalled with the ax murder so maybe 12 was too young.
However, that same year I picked up and loved Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels. Sherlock Holmes became and still is my favorite detective.
V Sten latest great Already ordered next one. Then the Fox by Frederick Forsyth.Then Tina Turner new biography Thankyou Waterstones @ Leamington
When they’re interested? My reading history went Enid Blyton, Mills&Boone, Stephen King, many crime authors.
Yup, Enid Blyton around six / seven years old By eleven, sneaking (frowned upon) Mickey Spillane from an uncle’s bookshelf to read when parents were asleep…. ?
Isn’t Enid Blyton’s Mystery series a form of crime fiction ? In that case 7 years old the age I was when I read them
Got permission from the Adult Librarian at around 11 to take out Agatha Christie
Enid Blyton for me too around 6/7 😉
Started reading crime novels @ 10
Read them since young age. Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie. My daughter is 8 now and she loves Sherlock (the TV show) and I already got the audiobook for her to listen to.
Perhaps it’s my upbringing. As soon as I wasn’t a little kid anymore we didn’t watch kids movies as a family – War of the Roses, Silence of the Lamb, those were family movies in our household.
about 5.
Sherlock Holmes is good for youngsters. Also suggest the Lone Pine novels by Malcolm Saville and The Big Six by Arthur Ransome – all good intros.
Probably about 12 starting with PD James.
I would say about 12, but depends on the child, some grow up faster than others.
Caroline do you remember we had to pass a book shop on Way home from school and you had to go In every day and sit on floor to read
I do indeed it’s only exceptional self restraint that stops me from still doing that
Only recently begun reading them at 39 1/2 ?
I think I was about 11/12 yes old, my man had Agatha Christie and I progressed from there
Depends on the writer! Willie Collins, Agatha Christie etc quite young if good readers; gory/violent well into teens – don’t want nightmares!
Started reading Lawrence block aged 15 when I left school (the way the school year fell I did my exams in the June and my birthday was in August). Didn’t go to the library for a few years before that as my friends would have laughed and there were no girls there lol