At what temperature do digital books burn? Asking for a friend.

I feel like a bad mum. I took my son’s phone away. He was reading fantasy books online and I didn’t like it. Wow. Hi my name’s Jackie and I’m a book denier. That doesn’t feel good at all.

I learnt to read when I was three. No, really. At least, there was a book about kittens that I demanded so often that in the end I knew what the words looked like.

I arrived at school at just turned four in 1974 (yikes) and was horrified to discover this weird phonetic scheme which needed learning all over again PLUS Catherine in the other class was on a book ahead of me because she had the first one at home – a clearly outrageous miscarriage of justice.

By the time I left infants in 1976 I had finished the whole bookshelf and was allowed to read the same words as the rest of the world. I can’t vouch for Catherine.

Which is to say, I am a reader. During my Tragic Childhood and Troubled Adolescence I found comfort, warmth and, most importantly, books, in public and school libraries. I could read four books a day during the holidays (skimming may have been involved). No-one was monitoring my reading (see Tragic Childhood) so I read some eclectic, age inappropriate stuff – I read Tin Drum by Gunter Grass before I left primary school, for example. Why, on reflection, was it even in their library? That’s the 1970’s for you, I suppose.

It is probably not an exaggeration to say that all I am now is because of the reading I did then. There was every chance of me ending up on a sink estate, pregnant at 15. That was where I lived and that’s what happened to some of my peers. But although I was desperate for a boyfriend, I was also desperate to read and that led to University and from there into well paid work.

In the interests of honesty, I should probably point out a fat, bucktoothed, intense reader wasn’t prime girlfriend material, which also helped. I have mentioned the Tragic Childhood, yes? Also the well paid job, which paid for the orthodontics so it’s all good now.

All of which leads me to the unexpected position of yesterday, when I confiscated my teenage son’s ‘phone so he can’t read on-going, never-ending fantasy novels that are self published online. We’ve also had fights in which I have physically wrested his Kindle from his hand so he can’t get to them in the middle of the night. He looked up (ok, technically down, he’s taller) at me with tears in his eyes and said ‘But mum, it’s reading!’

Is it, though? People who say let them read anything don’t mean that, do they? Unedited, badly written, lowest common denominator shit (I know that’s a vast generalisation, but that IS the level he’s reading at) without any end to it. At least publishing house books have an editor.

To add context, his effort grades are down, his attainment grades are down, he does get stuck in a rut – who ever knew I’d have to hide the Percy Jackson set when he was seven to get him to read something else, or the Terry Pratchett DiscWorld books at twelve so he’d give them a rest. And his world, his room, his Kindle, is FULL of really good, well written fantasy books, it’s not like I don’t like the genre in and of itself. I’m not asking him to read Dickens (though he’d probably like it after the first one. Would he? Can I do that?)

So here we are. I feel mean. I feel relieved he’s forced back into the world more. I feel ridiculous that I am talking about online books like they are Class A drugs.

I could do with some advice, fellow readers. What what you do?