I was sorting through all my books, especially the ones I read when I was 7-9, and I noticed that actually many of the books I read at that age, were really written for adults or teenagers. Eg several holocaust memoirs with a lot of nasty details and so on. I must have been about 11 when I took 'Belle du Jour' off mum's shelf and read that (it was glossy new and looked interesting! Can't say my 11 year old self was that impressed by it though). From about that time, I was allowed to use Mum's library card to get books when she wasn't around
So my reading material was never censored. I was allowed to read anything I wanted, whenever I wanted. But my friends weren't. And I notice quite a few parents ban certain books, or authors (eg. someone banned their 8 yo from reading Jacqueline Wilson. By that age I had read much grittier things in adults books) altogether. Mostly they say 'kids need a childhood' as the reason for banning them
I don't think reading lots of adult books affected me that much. Certainly by the time I was 12 nothing I read would have shocked me any more, but I wasn't traumatised too much by reading those books (well, a few nightmares after reading about Auschwitz as a 7 yo, but nothing too bad). I also read classics and Harry Potter and all that, but if I saw an interesting adult book, I read it as well.
My questions to you guys - How much reading freedom did you have, and what was the most adult book you read as a child? Would you ban your kids from certain books? And is banning children from reading certain books/authors a good thing or a bad thing?