My teacher had some objections when I read A Time To Kill in sixth grade, but she called my mom and my mom said it was OK. Same thing happened with the librarian when I tried to borrow Uncle Tom's Cabin from the library in second grade. (I didn't actually read that one then -- I tried, but sounding out the dialect was way above my reading level at the time.)

My parents gave me Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (*but were afraid to ask) when I was 9, and started asking.

Then I just picked up the copies of The Sensuous Man and The Sensuous Woman that were lying around.

But reading porn as a pre-pubescent is pretty much an anthropological endeavor.

However, it did warp my values so that I believed that willingness to go down on your partner was nothing short of a moral obligation.

I read Sacajawea by Anne Waldo Something when I was in about second grade. Some things I didn't get -- rape, and Charboneau using beaver fat to grease her up -- but I asked. About rape, that is, and my parents told me in an appropriate way.

I loved all the herbal and exploratory issues in the book, and after my dad saw me reading it, and quizzed me on it, and discovered that I was indeed, reading it and not pretending, he was ok. He told me there were some things in there that were grown up, and if I had any questions, I should ask him or mom. And I did.

Man, I read that book so many times it fell apart. I suspect I would have some serious issues as an adult, but at 7, my PC buttons and lit crit faculties weren't totally advanced. I wanted STORY. (Still mostly do, actually.)

And then librarians would try to steer me away from "too mature" books until I was 12 or so, or unless they got to know me. My mom took care of that tout de suite. If they wouldn't let me check a book out, or tried to limit me to 3, she'd check 'em out on her card and hand 'em to me at the front desk.

I assume they will feel the same way. (I also have no doubt that by the time they're old enough to be interested in such things, they will have the necessary skills to aquire their own

I was interested in porn way before I could get it for myself (8 or so), and managed to get the kids around me interested in it too. In a non-digital age, I was 14 before I started buying my own, 10 or so before someone started giving it to me.

I was REALLLL popular for my dramatic readings of the sex scenes from Valley of Horses when I was about 12.

Irony? I knew ALLLLL about sex from about 8 on, and didn't get kissed till I was 17. And man, was I PISSED about that.

I was all edjamacated and tongue kissed my first boy at 8...and then the second one many years later. I don't know all that book larning was for any good end.

Yes, I went from Never Been Kissed to backseat, er, manual stimulation in about 20 minutes.

I knew what was happening intellectually, but the lizard brain, she is not so smart.

Connie, I should have known the Hardisons of the e-reader world would have my(messy) back...maybe at Christmas. I still like paper books and will be sad if/when they do not print them anymore, but the e-reader would be nice for things like biographies and books of Matt Taibbi columns...not that Taibbi's work is disposable or anything...just that it's hard to reread election analysis.

So, do I want to read The Help or not? I put it on hold at the library a long time ago, and it just came up. I feel like I'm already over the whole controversy thing and am back to not caring about it.

I enjoyed The Help quite a lot. I liked the characters and saw way too many of my relatives reflected in them.