How I Know My Daughter Will Be a Fan of Stephen King's Work

Every night, before my children go to sleep, I gently tip toe into their rooms and give them each a delicate kiss on the forehead. My son coos at me (so what if he's six?) and usually says, "I love you, Mommy." My seven year old daughter says, "What are you waiting for? Tell me what happened next!" She is asking what happened in the book that I'm currently reading. The scarier, the better. She loves hearing about it all. Ghost family? Check! Unbalanced, psychic Grandmother wielding an axe? Check! She LOVES that kind of material, because she is genetically predisposed to love it. And I have proof.

What ten year old is allowed to read gory, violent religious fiction? "My goodness", Current Me would sigh, if she saw 1985 Me curled up on the couch reading such literature, "poor little girl. Some people will let their children read anything! Don't her parents know that she is reading that garbage? Do you think it will cause issues, later in life?" I'm pretty sure that Then Me would have told Current Me that her mother and father had no idea that she was reading a book about the spawn of the devil. I am convinced that people can grow up to have issues, stemming from all kinds of things, but horror novels will most certainly not cause any lasting trauma.

Case in point:



September, 1985

I finished "The Omen". It was good. I found out something about it, before the young nanny died(It was hard to see with the bare eyes!) by being hung by herself, in the picture Jennings took there was a CLOUD around her neck! Also on the picture of Father Tassone, he had a CLOUD going in his arm and out of his waist, then a little while later, (a few days later) he had an accident. A teacher accidently dropped the pole that opens the window and it went down through Tassone's sholder and out his waist! Then, after he died Jennings took picture's of of Tassone's room in the church and a small mirror was in the corner,Jenning's caught his reflection in it, and he didn't have a neck, just a CLOUD! Then, a truck with glass on it sliced his neck off! So, everyone who found out the secret died! Get it? I think that's NEAT!

There you have it. Although I will try to make sure that my little girl doesn't read this book any time soon, I don't profess myself as being an expert on child rearing. I do think it would be advisable to make sure that your child can at least spell the word "shoulder", before they are allowed to read about the son of satan.