How much should we censor books for kids?

Should we censor our kids’ books – or give them the freedom to read whatever they choose? Andrea Mara turns to the experts

Should you censor your child’s reading material, or let them try anything that catches their interest? It’s something I’ve been battling with for a number of years now, particularly with my eldest child, now nine, who will read anything she finds in front of her – it might be the latest Jacqueline Wilson book but it could just as easily be a newspaper or my copy of Grazia (a recent feature on naked restaurants springs to mind).

Unable to keep up with her reading – one library trip a week with three young kids is as much as I can manage – we bought her a Kindle last summer. We set up a child account on Overdrive, the fantastic app that lets you borrow ebooks from your local library, and all our problems were solved. Or so we thought. Then she figured out how to search for free books on Amazon, and everything was thrown open again. Most recently, looking over her shoulder, I found her reading a book about a murder at a wedding, in which the chief suspect was the groom’s “ex-lover” – a “brassy blonde” if I remember correctly. I asked my daughter some questions about the book and read through a few pages myself – it probably wasn’t ideal reading material, but as far as I could see (apart from the irritating “brassy blonde” reference) there wasn’t anything that would generate either worried questions or nightmares for a nine-year-old. A year ago, I’d have taken it from her, but having read various online discussions about why we shouldn’t censor our children’s reading, I try if I can to let her make her own decisions. The theory is that if kids come across something they don’t understand, they’ll gloss over it or ask a question. So rather than being censors, we should give them freedom to read what they choose.