Today the Chicks are chatting about books we read as kids that we weren’t supposed to–or at least that we thought were verboten. Hiding in the cellar, reading it under the covers at night? What books did you sneak behind your parents’ backs?

Lisa Q. Mathews

I started reading my way through my parents’ bookshelves from the time I was able to climb up onto them. (It was also my job to dust my dad’s pipe collection housed there, so no one disturbed me.) I think I started at about 7. No one ever told me NOT to read any of those books. But I sure learned a lot, lol. I remember a few in particular: Valley of the Dolls (mentioned by other Chicks here as well, I notice), Exodus, The Agony and The Ecstasy, The Stepford Wives, and every Ian Fleming book that was not Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. I read mostly spy thrillers–loved them–but also ones where I noticed the higher-than-PG parts. The first one I remember that I probably should not have had my hands on was the family saga Penmarric. Yowza. And then there were a few very literary and graphic scenes in Ragtime. But I also found the entire collection of Sherlock Homes and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. My parents belonged to a Readers Digest book club, because I read the abridged versions of just about every bestseller from the 70s. Jaws had some pretty racy scenes–I remember those more than the shark.

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 Ellen Byron

When I was twelve, I got a gig babysitting for the kids of friends of my parents. There I discovered a copy of Valley of the Dolls. I read as much of it as I could on my babysitting gigs with them. I never did get to finish the book but cut to the late 1980s…

The mother of a friend of mine married Jacqueline Susann’s widower, Irving Mansfield. My friend Lisa took me up to their apartment one day. It was in this totally cool curved mid-century building on Central Park South. (Sidebar: my friend Debra Jo Rupp, who played the mom on That Seventies Show, bought an apartment in the same building about ten years ago.) Lisa showed me Susann’s office. Per her widower’s orders, the office looked exactly the same as when the author crafted her sexy books there years earlier. Lisa’s mom wasn’t thrilled the room was more memorial than room, needless to say. But I thought it was fantastic.

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Leslie Karst

For me it was Valley of the Dolls, back in junior high school. Lots of girls were reading it, and I believe one of them gave me her copy after she finished. The pocket edition I read was almost in tatters, its spine broken with lots of dog-eared pages, so it had likely gone through many hands before mine.

In retrospect, I’m guessing my parents wouldn’t have had a problem with me reading it–it was READING, after all–but because of all the sex and drugs, I tried to keep the book hidden from sight. I remember wrapping it in a paper napkin and leaving it on my desk. Great concealment–not! And I remember that it was in that book that I first came across the word “diaphragm” in the context of….you know. I think I may have even asked my mom what it meant. Way to blow your cover, Leslie.

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Kathleen Valenti

How many books did I sneak-read? Let me count the ways. Or rather, the books.

It all started with Carrie, my gateway drug to Stephen King. From there, it was ‘Salem’s Lot, Pet Sematary, The Shining, and The Stand. After glutting myself on King, I moved into other genres of above-my-age reads, like the Clan of the Cave Bear series. Truth be told, my mom pretty much let me read anything, as long as it didn’t keep me up at night (not counting reading under the covers). She was a voracious reader herself, and would often read a book a day!

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Becky Clark

I never thought any reading was off limits at my house, but I was convinced I’d get in trouble if I left the kids’ area of the library and walked upstairs to the “real” books. The staircase was wide open, curving up to the second floor. No hiding behind all that glass. But when I screwed up the courage and tromped up there, nobody stopped me and the literary world became my oyster! I do remember my mom getting mad at my older sister for leaving her “Cosmopolitan” magazine where impressionable Becky could read it. Which, of course, I had already done.

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Jennifer Chow

We had a bookcase in our living room filled with many tomes. On a higher shelf were these pretty books. I particularly loved the stylized font of the author’s name on the covers, the way the letters were embossed. Even though I knew those were my mom’s books, I figured she wouldn’t mind. That’s how I first got introduced to Danielle Steel; I didn’t realize back then that they were racy, and honestly, most of the concepts probably flew over my head. When I was older, I started book swapping with other kids. One friend gave me his whole Shogun series by James Clavell; those were definitely more violent than other stories I’d been exposed to—but oddly addictive. And then finally, one day, I decided to borrow my brother’s copy of Dracula. Suffice it to say, I decided to not read any more horror after that…

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Readers: What books did you sneak-read as kids?