What Did You Read When You Were Young

[Parche]

In that order......:hi: :popcorn:

[redqueen]

1. Poe, Crowley, King, Straub, etc.

Anything in that genre, I'd devour.

I also liked Sci Fi... I remember really loving Heinlein's Star Beast. :)

[ohiosmith]

2. In this order:

[QueenOfCalifornia]

7. BwaaaaHaaaa!

You are a droll fellow.

I bet you had more than that one issue of Playboy... tucked between the box spring and the mattress... squeek...squeek...squeek.

[ohiosmith]

8. How could you know that? You must be some kind of psychic or something.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

37. Criss Angel calls me

every single day to ask for my amazing Kreskin like advice.

[MrCoffee]

3. The Westing Game - i loved that book when i was a kid.

[XemaSab]

33. I was thinking about that book yesterday

It's teh awesome. :)

[LSK]

4. I remember reading a 700 page history of Colorado when I was 14

During my summer vacation.

I already remember reading the Great Brain stories.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Nancy Drew mysteries (I'm old), my mom's old Bobbsey Twins books,

and when I was home sick with scarlet fever for a couple of weeks in 6th grade, Huxley's Brave New World, which I thought was the coolest book ever.

[Thirtieschild]

9. I must be even older: Bobbsey Twins (mine, not my mom's), Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys

[Adsos Letter]

10. "And the footsteps outside the window...

were those of Fenton Hardy." ahhh...I cut my teeth on those...and my mom read me Bruce Catton's "Civil War" books...

[QMPMom]

49. Nancy Drew, The Chincoteague Island Horse books, Bobsey Twins...

Well, I read just about anything I could get my hands on. I still have a test that they did when I was in Grade 2 that showed I was reading at a Grade 12 level.

I still read all of the time. If I don't have another book waiting on me to start reading when I finish the current one, I get nervous. I have to have reading material available.

[Faygo Kid]

6. Anything on dinosaurs, comic books, encyclopedias, Paul Bunyan stories.

You know the kind you bought each week at the grocery store? Probably about 1962. Devoured them. Turned me into the Cliff Klaven annoying trivia guy I remain today.

Loved Batman and many other comic books. Dinosaurs were my first love - Roy Chapman Andrews, the original Indiana Jones, and his explorations in Mongolia in the 1920s.

Paul Bunyan stories were favorites too, as I recall.

[mitchum]

11. Brains Benton Mysteries, The Three Detectives, In Cold Blood, Huckleberry Finn...

To Kill A Mockingbird, The Gold Bug, The Snake That Went To School, One Hundred and One Dalmatians and Beverly Cleary's books were some of my favorites when I was a young kid. And many remain favorites today.

[carly denise pt deux]

12. here's mine

?







and probably a few school text books tossed in here and there
Carly

[Arkansas Granny]

13. I don't remember much of what I read before the third grade. We

had a very small library at the rural school I attended. Then I got a library card and I discovered Albert Payson Terhune. He wrote several books about collies and I think I probably read every one of them. I read a lot of my older brothers science fiction back in the 50's, but I don't remember many of the authors other than Heinlein, Bradbury and Asimov.

[Generic Brad]

14. Time and Newsweek

I was not your typical kid.

[lizziegrace]

15. As many books a week as I could carry out of the library

My mother had to chase me out of the house to play outside. I read constantly. :)

[femmocrat]

16. I was also a voracious reader from an early age.

We belonged to the Weekly Reader Book Club, so I remember receiving those books in the mail. I also read a lot of books about horses, like the Walter Farley Wild Stallion series, Black Beauty, Justin Morgan had a Horse, Misty of Chincoteague, etc. Plus, lots of fairy tales... I loved the Brothers Grimm and Andersen's Fairy Tales.

[Arugula Latte]

18. Oh, man, the horse books you mentioned were my staples.

I read some of them about five times.

This was another favorite:

[annabanana]

17. All the Oz books

All the Mary Poppins books
All the A,A, Milne
Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass (STILL read it, annotated)
The Tall Book of Tall Tales

and on and on.. I spent a lot of time with my nose in a book.

[Arugula Latte]

19. A few of my favorites (plus above-mentioned horsie books):

[Richardo]

20. I remember Mike Mulligan!

Emil and the Detectives
Hardy Boys
Must have been a lot of others I'm not remembering

In the summer of 1966 I read 50 books so I could fill in my American Flag poster (the library gave you one star for each book). I was 9 years old.

[KG]

21. the Mad Scientists Club!

[mitchum]

44. The Mad Scientists Club was great

I haven't thought of that book in 40 years
Thanks!

[greatauntoftriplets]

22. The World Book Encyclopedia that my parents bought when I was 7 or 8.

I would take a volume to read in bed every night before I went to sleep. I didn't read the entire volume, but it ended up that I knew those books pretty much from cover to cover.

[rakeeb]

24. thank God I wasn't the only weird kid

that read through the set of encyclopedias. Turns out I kick ass at Trivial Pursuit now.

[yellowdogintexas]

26. another World Book Nerd here, except mine were my mom's old 1939

World Books before it got repackaged as a research aid for upper elementary and high school use. I lobbied extensively for a more modern set, aided and abetted by various school teachers who sold them as a summer job, but alas my mom refused

She did however buy me Childcraft.

[mitchum]

46. And another World Book Nerd here

I remember my parents buying the whole package (encyclopedias, Childcraft, dictionary) when I was 4. I was a precocious reader. And when I think about what a cash outlay that was for them at the time, I love them even more. My parents, I mean.

[intheflow]

56. I had my father's 1928 encyclopedia set.

Read in 1974, at age 10: "One day man may walk on the moon." :rofl:

[yellowdogintexas]

61. oh boy ..and the fine print remember that! Needed a magnifying glass

to read them, and you couldn't research anything for school that occurred after the publication date either. So when I had to do a report I always chose pre WWI events or presidents so the data was more or less accurate! Calvin Coolidge was sooo boring!


mine had these way weird photos of XRAYS of pregnant women at term with multiple gestation..twins, triplets can you imagine, XRAYing a pregnant woman now? But the photos were kind of cool.

[InkAddict]

57. I used to read encyclopedias too

close my eyes, run my hand down the spines, pick one, and just open it up and read, then I tried to make sense of some of the Harvard Classics - I remember how disappointed I was that The Voyage of The Beagle was not about a dog, LOL, and loved the horror and illustrations re: The Black Plague.

[yellowdogintexas]

62. this is almost calling for a new thread about Encyclopedia Nerds!

think we could form our own DU group?

of course we could attribute our progressive, liberal open minded tendencies to the great universal reading we all did as young folks!

(edited to add: do you love Trivial Pursuit, and Jeopardy? Seems to go along with encyclopedia reading, I have found)

[intheflow]

65. I almost always win Trivial Pursuit--

as long as I don't get too many sports questions. :P And I do pretty well at Jeopardy, too. Never associated it with reading those old encyclopedias, I was a bookworm to the first degree, so I always figured it was due to that. But now that you mention it... I'll bet the encyclopedia reading helps, too.

[TK421]

23. Charlotte's Web...kill all innocent, brilliant spiders n/t

[Kingofalldems]

25. The Hardy Boys

by Franklin W Dixon

[Joey Liberal]

27. Playboy Magazine n/t

[yellowdogintexas]

28. Nancy Drew, of course, OLD Bobbsey Twins, Uncle Scrooge Comic books

a wonderful 1955 edition Child Craft which I loved so much that when my daughter was about 7 I lucked up on a set of them in Half Price Books and bought them for her ( my sister had kidnaped our set for HER daughter about 10 years earlier)

The Bumper Book
Mother Goose
Aesop's Fables
Uncle Remus (Disney version, sorry folks just love me some Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and Brer Bear
Tom Sawyer
Eight Cousins
Rose in Bloom
Little Women
Just So Stories
Life Among the Savages and Raising Demons
various biographies written at about the middle school level
stories of various mythologies
anything else that I found appealing


I also had subscriptions to Jack and Jill, then Children's Digest, then Calling all Girls and I read Look and Life and the daily comics and the World Book

I sort of jumped into adult literature in the 7th grade, with To Kill A Mockingbird..

[Lady Effingbroke]

29. OMG! Mike Mulligan!

I loved that book when I was a kid!

[IcyPeas]

30. The Happy Hollisters

Does anyone else remember this series? It wasn't til recently when I looked it up that I realized all the stories (which were mysteries) had a christian/god bent to them. I used to take them out of the library at my catholic grammar schoool...... but I just remember them as being mysteries....

[lligrd]

51. I Had The Whole Collection

loved them.

[graywarrior]

31. Bio's and auto-bio's

I couldn't get enough. Now I could care less.

[Zoigal]

32. Anthing that i could get my hands on

Still do. p

[InkAddict]

58. Me too. Everyone thinks my screen name is about tattoos

but its about printing ink all over my handS, face, forearms. I'm always in the middle of a good book, story in a magazine, newspaper, etc. It's my firm belief that one must pick up and read all the little newsletters at Steak & Shake and the freebies at the entrances/exits of stores, the Senior newspapers, the Autotrader, the Scoop, the entertainment papers, the Harmon Homes books; otherwise, they will stop publishing them for people like me.

Can you even imagine what it was like discovering the Internet - virtual black ink about EVERYTHING!

[Faygo Kid]

34. Almost forgot: "Fun With Dick and Jane." "Highlights for Children."

I posted earlier, but I have no idea who Mike Mulligan is or was.

However, older Boomers remember Dick and Jane, and Highlights.

And Mad Magazine. Of course.

[Sacajawea]

35. Cherry Ames series.....student nurse, graduate nurse, visiting nurse, camp nurse...etc...etc....

[PassingFair]

36. These were the first "real" books I remember reading.

I think they were my Dad's when he was growing up.
I remember them FONDLY!

[alphafemale]

38. Anything I could get from the school library.

And my mother subscribed to those Reader's Digest Condensed Books.

[Richard Steele]

39. The 1976 World Book Encyclopedia, and my Mom's ten-year collection of Readers Digest.

I'm guessing the RD spanned about 1962-72 or so.

Scanned all Dad's "Field and Streams" for Patrick McManus' works.

At school, every bit of SF in my grade-school library,
followed by all the general fiction.

A few major influences: Encyclopedia Brown, the Great Brain series,
the Three Investigators, and Henry Reed's Journal.

Oh, how could I forget: The Mad Scientists Club. That one really
helped TWIST me into the man I am today! :evilgrin:

[mitchum]

47. Henry Reed's Journal...yes!

also
Henry Reed's Babysitting Service
Henry Reed, Inc

[Richard Steele]

52. Yup- I couldn't remember the other titles in that series. Thanks! nm

[billyskank]

40. "Fast From the Gate" by Michael Hardcastle

the first novel I read. I think I was 9 or 10. Then I read the sequel, "Tiger Of The Track" which astonishingly Amazon does not seem to have. I am sure I didn't make it up.

[YankeyMCC]

41. Anything Science Fiction

Particularly the old classics, Heinlein, Asimov, Clarke, etc...

I also read a lot of the Greek Mythology stories and ancient plays, started out as class assignments but I enjoyed them and read more than the assignments.

I also read "Boy's Life" magazine

I still read SF and the ancient classics, but I've added other stuff too now :)

[laylah]

42. Fun With Dick and Jane

Bobbsey Twins
Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm
Hardy Boys
Nancy Drew
all children's classics
Hawaii (when I was 13)
bio's and auto-bio's
Follow the River
Sacajewaya (sp?)
many too numerous to mention/remember

My grandmother was our local librarian and I remember rainy Saturday afternoons, curled up in the
Queen Anne's chair, in the children's room. I am sure I read every book in that room, and, more than likely, close to every book in the library by the time they retired her at 88.

[BarenakedLady]

43. Lots of stuff

My family have always been big readers. I remember going to the library often and picking up several books. Starting way back with Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka.

[Chovexani]

45. Interview with a Vampire & the Vampire Lestat when I was 11

It's why I'm so fucked up as an adult. :P

[intheflow]

53. Yeah, for me it was King, at the same age.

That, and Helter Skelter, and Sybil, all read before I was 14. :eyes:

[stuntcat]

48. Arm in Arm by Remy Charlip

And I still look at Frog and Toad sometimes, I love them so much, for some reason I'm really happy about them being friends, I am not kidding.


And I read Watership Down like three times, even though it was so sad.
I used to read and read like there was nothing else in the world to do.

[RushIsRot]

50. Depends on what you mean by "young."

In my teens I discovered a great book called CACHE LAKE COUNTRY, and because I liked that one so much a teacher suggested WALDEN. I've been a Thoreau fan ever since.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

54. These were my faves...

[intheflow]

55. My earliest memories are of Dr. Seuss.

Specifically The Sneetches. (Which I can recite from memory.)

I started reading early and I was a voracious reader. Here's more or less a chronological list of some of my favs, birth through age 12.

• The Little House, Virginia Lee Burton
  
• Parsley, Ludwig Bemelmans
  
• On Beyond Zebra, Dr. Seuss
  
• Mike's House, Julia L. Sauer
  
• Ranger Rick Magazine
  
• Charlotte's Web, E.B. White
  
• Nancy Drew (Old Nancy Drew from the 30's or 40's, my mom's books.)
  
• The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare
  
• Tiger Beat and its ilk :eyes:
  
• Island of the Blue Dolphins, Scott O'Dell
  
• Calico Captive, Elizabeth George Speare
  
• Gone With The Wind, Margaret Mitchell (Read in four days when I was 13.)
  
• Adult biographies of film stars from the '30's - '50's (This was in the '70s, I read a million of 'em.)
  
• The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton
  
• The Shining, Stephen King
  
• 'Salem's Lot, Stephen King
  
• Sybil, Flora Rheta Schreiber

I think the books by Elizabeth George Speare have most influenced the adult I am. But Ranger Rick and Sybil also left strong impressions on me.

*Edited to add that the book Mike's House, listed above, is about a little boy who gets lost in a snowstorm outside the NYC Public Library. He called the library Mike's House because his favorite book was Mike Mulligan! :)

[calimary]

59. Eloise!

The original "Eloise" book by the fabulous Kay Thompson, illustrated by the brilliant and whimsical Hilary Knight. Eloise was a precocious "city child" who lived on the top floor of the Plaza Hotel in New York, with Nanny, her nanny, her dog Weenie and her turtle Skipperdee. She was six. Six going on 36 is more like it. I was six when the book came out and my mom got it for me. I was literally mesmerized by those drawings.
Then came "Eloise in Paris," "Eloise at Christmastime" and "Eloise in Moscow" - followed decades later by the long withheld "Eloise Takes a Bawth." There have been reissues since and I made sure I got 'em all. My all-time FAVORITES!!!

I also enjoyed a whole lotta "Nancy Drew" books and Dr. Seuss and there was this large, full-color, lavishly illustrated children's Bible with large, elaborate pictures with every story. I was fascinated by those pictures. Visually-oriented, I guess. Oh yeah, and there were also books about rocks and minerals and dinosaurs - I had dozens of rock books since I loved rock collecting from the time I could bend over and pick one up off the ground. LOTS of art and craft books. TONS of those. And one large, also lavishly illustrated kids' book called "The Human Body." Dang, I loved those full-page illustrations. I'd pour over them for hours.

[WinkyDink]

60. Trixie Belden; Swiss Family Robinson; Child's History of the World;

Golden Books Encyclopedia.

[skyblue]

63. Pippi Longstocking - altho' i hate that Wendy's wig thing. nt

[Perseid]

64. I was just a wee little tadpole, but

my first book was Lady Chatterly's Lover

ruined me for life