My 11 year old wants to read whatever her 14 year old cousin is reading

saffron_drum_476423 May 2026

My niece stayed with us for a week and left behind a stack of novels that my older girl has been working through ever since. She reads fast and has always read above her age, which I've loved. These are a different matter: a lot of school romance, some swearing, and one about a girl who runs away from home that she finished in a single night. I've never been a parent who confiscates books. I teach, I mentor students, I believe in reading widely. But eleven is eleven. How do you decide what's all right at this age, and what did you do when they'd already started something you weren't sure about?

2 comments

amber_quilt_874323 May 2026
'A girl who runs away' could be anything from an adventure story to something quite dark. What happens in it? That's the one I'd want to know about before the romance.
- saffron_drum_476423 May 2026
  Fair question. I read the back and the first chapter. She runs away to find her father, and so far it seems more sad than dark. I'll read the rest this weekend before I say anything to her.
- hazel_spoon_290424 May 2026
  My elder one has read plenty of these. The romance is mostly long text conversations and one kiss near the end. The running-away ones bothered me more, because she wanted to talk about them for days. Which turned out to be the useful part.
- saffron_drum_476424 May 2026
  Replying to @hazel_spoon_2904
  Talking about it for days is what I'm hoping for. She's been unusually quiet about this one.
- saffron_drum_476424 May 2026
  Replying to @hazel_spoon_2904
  Update: asked her about it at lunch, as casually as I could manage. She said the girl was 'silly to leave without a plan'. So perhaps I needn't have worried quite so much ❤
amber_marigold_606823 May 2026
read one yourself. took me an evening, and i stopped worrying about the kissing and started worrying about the grammar.