Ah, the 80s. How memorable they are!

[heidi]

matociquala has put together an amazing collection of 80s music videos here, which led to me looking for

Watch on YouTube

and caused me to create the following poll:

[Poll #1101876]

Oh, and speaking of the 80s, Slate Magazine asks the question, "Should children read Philip Pullman's trilogy—or the incest classic Flowers in the Attic?"

I guess people can't read both? There's a limited number of words one's brain can read in a month or a year or a decade? Huh.

The article is definitely not perfect, and there's some apples-and-avocados comparisons, but I found this paragraph of particular interest given recent actions by 6A:

At the same time, when I think back to my own preteen reading, I'll admit that the whole point was to read books that I wasn't ready for, without my parents' approval. Is this kind of illicit read damaging to kids, or is it an inevitable excursion into pseudo-maturity that beats a lot of the other likely avenues? Better a disturbing, too-adult book than an indelibly horrifying movie or Internet game or video (or, it goes without saying, an encounter with real scary people)?

Comments

[msbhaven.livejournal.com]

When I worked at Borders we would get the junior high kids alll the time and the girls would head straight to the VC Andrews & VC Andrews-sanctioned books. I'm sure their parents didn't know what their girls were reading and I'm sure those girls are in college now not scarred for life.

Something of a similar note was on EW nearly a yaer ago -

CONFESSIONS OF AN EW PARENT - Livre Free Or Die - EW's books editor Tina Jordan asks: What do you do when you hate what your daughter is reading?

She then had a follow up article here - CONFESSIONS OF AN EW PARENT - Scarlet Letters V.C. Andrews' ''Flowers in the Attic'' series? Judy Blume's ''Forever''? Stephen King's ''Christine''? If you hid your reading list from your parents, you're not alone