Neil Gaiman: 'my parents didn’t have any kind of rules about what I couldn’t read'

Photograph: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert/Getty Images

Do you remember reading any books as a child that were in some way disapproved of or forbidden? If yes, did they traumatise you for life, or did the subversive element make them more enjoyable?

I was really lucky in that my parents definitely didn’t seem to have any kind of rules about what I couldn’t read. And that was wonderful, because it meant that whatever was on the shelves, if it was interesting, I could pick it up and I was allowed to read it.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/aug/29/neil-gaiman-banned-books-censorship-interview?CMP=fb_us

Neil Gaiman: Libraries are cultural 'seed corn' | Books | The Guardian

The author tells Toby Litt how these ‘safe spaces’ were vital to him as a child, and why their closure endangers our future


Love letters to libraries: share your tribute to your favourite

 
Neil Gaiman with ‘a little empathy machine’.
Photograph: Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Li/Alamy

A feral child who was raised in libraries

Toby Litt: You’ve described yourself as a “feral
child who was raised in libraries”. What age were you when you were
first drawn into a library, and why do you think they hooked you?

Neil: I was probably three or four when I first
started going to libraries. We moved up to Sussex when I was five, and I
discovered the local library very, very quickly. But I wasn’t really
hooked until I got to the point where I was old enough to persuade my
parents to just take me to the library and leave me there, which would
have probably been about seven or eight. And at that point it was like
being given the keys to the kingdom.  Read more...

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Neil Gaiman: Libraries are cultural 'seed corn'

Neil Gaiman with ‘a little empathy machine’. Photograph: Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Li/Alamy

A feral child who was raised in libraries

Toby Litt: You’ve described yourself as a “feral child who was raised in libraries”. What age were you when you were first drawn into a library, and why do you think they hooked you?
Neil: I was probably three or four when I first started going to libraries. We moved up to Sussex when I was five, and I discovered the local library very, very quickly. But I wasn’t really hooked until I got to the point where I was old enough to persuade my parents to just take me to the library and leave me there, which would have probably been about seven or eight. And at that point it was like being given the keys to the kingdom.
 Read the article....

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