I second this. I was identified as "gifted" around 3rd grade, and from that point on, my teachers "guided me" (only allowed me access to) literature and texts t

I second this. I was identified as "gifted" around 3rd grade, and from that point on, my teachers "guided me" (only allowed me access to) literature and texts they felt were "at my level". Third grade is way too young to be reading literature classics - they are all incredible tragedies, with the worse aspects of human behavior exhibited and analyzed to the extreme. By 5th grade I'd pretty much finished the entire classics section at our library, and I was as dark minded as an individual could get, with the vocabulary to support plus youthful piss and vinegar ready to debate anyone with optimism. Thank god I discovered literary science fiction, and soon thereafter Phillip K Dick. I found reading "unhappy" literature was comforting, and U.K. post-punk bands like Joy Division also lent a sense of not being completely alone. Also reading Malcome X was hugely uplifting, as a white Iowa boy. And the cyper-punk authors were just starting then; I remember reading Neuromancer when it first came out and feeling completely at home in the reality painted by that novel. About the only "good" thing that came out of my elementary school teachers only allowing me access to "gifted" activities was their taking me out of math class and leaving me alone with the school's first computer (this was the late 70's) for 2 hours every day.