What did you read as a child?

[Cartoonist]

I just picked up a Hardy Boys adventure as a means of time travel. I never read a Nancy Drew adventure, though I always secretly wanted to.

I never read the Tom Swift series, though it's subject matter appealed to me.

[Xipe Totec]

1. Encyclopaedias

Richardson's Topical,
Encyclopaedia Britannica,
Quillet,
Jackson,
and others.

[Cartoonist]

2. Fiction group

[Anon-C]

55. Encyclopedia Brittanica, National Geographic,

Boy's Life, 1000s of comic books and occasionally a Playboy Magazine.

[MichMary]

3. My favorite book

when I was in about 3rd grade was _Captain Ghost_. This was probably about 1962 or so.

[likesmountains 52]

11. Wow.. I remember that book. 1960 for me .

[MichMary]

18. Just out of curiosity I looked it up

Can't be found anywhere now. But it must have been pretty good, since it got lots of stars.

[likesmountains 52]

21. I looked too! Used hardcovers are $200!

I checked Abebooks.

[Ohiogal]

4. I read all the Nancy Drew books

and all the Bobbsey Twins books.

Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys

Harriet the Spy, Beezus and Romona books,

all the Black Stallion books, Black Beauty,

in Junior high I loved The Outsiders.

I'm sure I can remember more if I think some more!

[Cartoonist]

6. Beezus

I read those and enjoyed them but I have no memory of them. I haven't revisited them.

[MichMary]

20. We had a bunch of Bobbsey Twin books

but they were from different eras, so in some the fam rode around in a horse and buggy and in some they had a car. Kind of a literary time warp thing.

[notdarkyet]

31. I read the trixie beldon series. My daughters read them all. My one daughter still has them.

Trixie wasn’t as prim and proper as Nancy. That’s why we liked her better. Little. House books I read every year. Little women at least fifty times.. Robinson crousoe, treasure island, the borrowers, I think I read every book in the library.

[thbobby]

5. Tolkien and Castaneda - as a 6th grade child

[Cartoonist]

9. I missed out.

I didn't read Tolkien until my Junior year. I saw his books and was fascinated by them, but I didn't pick them up.

[dixiegrrrrl]

54. Oh bravo for you.

didn;t read them till much later.

[thbobby]

61. The hobbit

and then some lesser known things like The Smith of Wooten Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. Didn't get into Lord of the Rings Trilogy until high school. I had a friend who loved Castaneda and got me into The Teachings of Don Juan A Yaqui Way of Knowledge and Journey to Ixtlan. We both liked Journey to Ixtlan because it wasn't about drugs.

A read Tolkien to my kids when they were young. The short stories are really suited well to children.

[Guilded Lilly]

7. Tricia Beldon was an early favorite and my sisters Nancy Drew series was...

always available when I could sneak it out of her room.

But when I discovered Charlotte Armstrong, I discovered my hero author.
After reading her works my love for writing hit the stratosphere!
I still love them to this day.

[Nay]

22. Trixie Belden, I think that's the name. I read all those, plus Hardy Boys and

Nancy Drew. In Jr High I read lots of scifi short stories.

Also, all the Black Stallion books and frankly, just about anything I could get my hands on. I was a ferocious reader.

[Guilded Lilly]

26. Yeah, I had stacks of books in my room and though...

I was a serious tree climbing, bike riding, jump roping, kick ball playing kid, I would often take one of those young teen sleuth series like Trixie Beldon up into the massive trees I climbed and read in total solitude.

Best book reading was late at night. Great to set the mood of mysteries.

I am actually glad I didn’t have smart phones and computers attached to my childhood.

[Nay]

28. I used to go outside under a tree to read -- so peaceful! And yes, my bro and I

and all the kids in the neighborhood were outside all day, making a raft, collecting bottles for the return money, digging ditches, making jumps for us to jump over, etc. It pains me to see my grandson do nothing but stay inside all day. It isn't going to serve him well.

[Guilded Lilly]

41. Yup. All things considered I am so grateful to have grown up when I did...

Fortunately my grandkids are a being raised (as their parents were, too!) with a true love of outdoors as well as indoors activities.

They are all under 6 and will no doubt become deeply attached to technology but for now, they are well acquainted with climbing trees, swimming and bikes and daily trips to the park, backyward hide and seek, pee wee league sports and hands on museums.

I watch from the sidelines with achy knees (!) but my heart is right there with them!!

[lark]

8. Bookworm here, read everything I could get my hands on.

Read the Nancy Drew mysteriers, Treasure Island, My Friend Flicka, Black Beauty, Old Yeller, fairy tales, everything Grimm, Louisa May Alcott's books (my mom's old books so I had to be very careful with them). I read stranger in a Strange Land when I was 11 or 12 and became hooked on Sci Fi, read the Jules Verns books after that as well as Heinlein, Asimov, etc. etc. I still read everything, but had to go to a Kindle because my house was filled to almost overflowing with books. I still probably have 300+ hardbacks and maybe 20 paperback books after years and years of giving away books, especially the paperbacks. I used Book Bub and stored up over 100 free books on my Kindle and am reading them now. I miss the feel of books, but really like being able to read in the dark with my Kindle and not having to find a place to put the book once I've read it, lol.

[Arkansas Granny]

16. Same here. I read practically everything in our small rural grade school library early on.

I read Laura Ingalls Wilder, Albert Payson Terhune and any books about animals. When I was 8 or 9 I started reading my older brother's sci-fi books and was hooked. I still remember the first one I read: "Arena" by Fredric Brown.

These days I listen to audio books more than I read. Leaves my hands free and I can knit at the same time.😳

[notdarkyet]

33. Loved the fairy tales. The yellow book, the red book, Hans Christian Anderson. So many books

So little time.

[lark]

37. OMG, I love this post.

Love getting reminded of so many reading pleasures! I too read those books and loved them!

[Guilded Lilly]

43. Me, too! I am sitting here with a wonderfully nostalgic grin plastered on my face!

It does my soul good to remember!
Can’t beat those wonderful literary journeys.

[lark]

45. Book lovers unite!!

[hlthe2b]

10. Biographies, mainly and books about dogs--

Albert Payson Terhune's "Lad a Dog" was a favorite along with, of course, Jack London's "Call of the Wild"...

Biographies continue to be a favorite genre though.

[notdarkyet]

34. Read every biography in the library. Later found out they mostly weren't true.

[lark]

46. I was trying to remember that title.

That was a very important book to me. Just thought of another very influential book - All the Kings Men - so creepy and so prescient about what's happening today, along with Animal Farm.

I started reading an Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged when I was a teen and knew nothing about her. I quickly realized she is a sick fuck and quit reading.

Babba Rum Dass' Be Here Now is another one of my all time Faves, read this as a late teen as well and it changed my life.

[snowybirdie]

12. All the Little House

books, The Bobbsey Twins, The Betsey, Tacy and Tibb series. Later Nancy Drew, Cherry Hill, Student Nurse Series and some Hardy Boys. Loved biographies too. At ten, I read about Mary Queen of Scots. At 70, I walked through her castle and retraced some venues in her story. An amazing experience!

[Ohiogal]

13. I, too. loved the Little House books.

Boxcar Children too, anyone remember those?

[snowybirdie]

24. Yes!

Forgot that one! All were well written and didn't talk down to readers. Few pictures, no colors and good stories. We lapped them up!

[Dr Hobbitstein]

14. Stephen King and Dean Koontz, mostly...

But grew out of Koontz by junior high, when I got into Clive Barker and John Saul as well.

[lark]

19. i love love both of those authors, have all Stephen King books to date & lots of Koontz's too.

I like Koontz books about golden retrievers a lot recently & his Odd Thomas books. Want to read his Frankenstein books, but they are never on sale, so still waiting for that. I loved the King sequel to the Shining, very awesome and scary. I still have several of King's books to read, starting with "Bazaar of Bad Dreams" after I finish my current book.

[Zoonart]

27. The Koontz Frankenstein books are very interesting. You'll like them.

[Guilded Lilly]

32. My mom (an English/Psychology graduate) always

Bought us Classics Illustrated Comic Books when we were very little.

Anyone remember those? They were very well read in our household and introduced us to the world of classics through the attraction of comic books.
Fabulous illustrations.

Frankenstein, Count of Monte Cristo, Tale of Two Cities, Robin Hood, Huckleberry Finn
Great stuff

[lark]

36. Damn, I totally forgot the Mark Twain classics.

I read them all at least 2-3 times, they were so captivating to young me.

[Dr Hobbitstein]

50. I'm still a huge King fan, but I've grown to loathe Koontz.

I loved "Lightning" and "Watchers". Thought they were great. Everything I read after that, I felt was poorly written (this would be 12-13 year old me), and uninspired.

I did, recently, attempt to read Odd Thomas after I saw the film. Still can't get into Koontz's writing anymore.

Also, his politics are shit.

[lark]

59. You'd think a dog lover would have compassion for people.

But, sadly, I guess not. At least King is a liberal!!

Edited to remove typo.

[Bayard]

15. Love my books

The real thing, turning real pages, using a bookmark. The need to build more bookshelves. And I still have a ton in storage!

As a kid, I also read everything I could get my hands on. My mom worked at the local library. We also had all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys, Call of the Wild. Read every horse and dog book....Black Beauty, My Friend Flicka, Misty of Chincoteague, The Black Stallion series. Soon graduated to my mom's Book of the Month and Doubleday Book Club's.

I even liked the books we were required to read in school. Animal Farm was a particular favorite........and reminds me of our current situation.

[Frustratedlady]

17. Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew and the Nickodemus series.

When my children were in elementary, I was told by a teacher friend that those books should not be read by children as they repeat the same words and types of plot. My argument was that those books increased my interest in reading and actually taught me to question or explore events I ran across in my lifetime. My girlfriends and I would spend our lunch hour investigating "crimes" around our school. For instance, who was smoking cigarettes behind stage? Who put the hamster in the teacher's desk drawer...stuff like that. In later life, the habit of not accepting the obvious helped a great deal in figuring things out.

Too bad they don't work with the Golden Glob. I'll never figure him out.

[procon]

23. I read adventure stories and thrilling suspense novels.

Science fiction with Heinlein, Tolkien, Burroughs and Asimov, that was my fave genre. The Hornblower series, Jack London's books, Mark Twain and Jules Verne addicted me to mysterious stories. My penchant for "boys books" distressed my mother, so I tried to appease her by reading the gymkhana and pony club books and many other animal themed classics.

[MichMary]

25. I loved The Three Investigators series

Some thirty years later they were still available from our local library, and my son loved them, too.

[mucifer]

29. Little House Books and Charlotte's web helped shape me into a vegan

Those are the ones I remember the most.

[Thomas Hurt]

30. Read a few Hardy Boys and a bunch of the Encyclopedia Brown stories...

got hooked on Sci-fi and fantasy after that, anything I could find in book store. Read a lot of Martin Caidin's books, but mostly devoured anything sci-fi and fantasy. Mowed lawns for book money.

[backtoblue]

35. Judy Blume, RL Stine...then King and Koontz in early teens

I didn't stay in the child genre for very long.

I think Orwell took away my literary innocence lol

[cyclonefence]

38. Comic books

Little Lulu especially--weird stories there. Mary Poppins books, Nancy Drew (old enough to have racism rampant in them). All the "shoes" books by Noel Streatfield. Lulu's Window, obsessively, over and over. Eleanor Estes--the Moffatts, Rufus M., all of them. Then I, too, discovered Charlotte Armstrong and was hooked by sixth grade.

The first book I ever read to myself was "Peterkin's Hill," and I've searched and searched for it without success. I probably have the title wrong. It was about a little girl named Jemima and her father, who was a Quaker and used "thee" and "thy'. I distinctly remember lying on the living room couch and refusing to come to dinner because I was almost done with the book. Amazingly, I was allowed to stay and read.

[Siwsan]

39. I went from 'Nancy Drew' and 'The Bobbsey Twins' to historical biographies before my teens

Also remember a book called 'Junior Miss' by Sally Benson. As I recall, it took me a while to get into the story, but then I re-read the book, several times.

Now there are very few fiction writers I enjoy but I can get lost in non-fiction, particularly the historical biographies. They are my favorite.

[murielm99]

40. I read Nancy Drew

and the Bobssey Twins. I read anything that was in my classroom libraries.

Then, we moved closer to the public library. I skipped over the picture books and just went up and down the rows, reading all the fiction. The librarians got to know me and pointed out some of the good nonfiction, too.

I said that when I grew up I was going to be a librarian. I did that too.

[dameatball]

42. "We Were There" historical novels. Hardy Boys, Sherlock Holmes

The "We Were There" books were fictional retellings of significant historic events. They had many different books.
My favorite single book I read a few times around the age of 7 or 8 was "The Black Stone Knife." It featured a young Kiowa ( I think) boy in a coming of age type adventure.

[eppur_se_muova]

44. "The Mad Scientists Club", "Miss Pickerel Goes to Mars", "The Incredible Flight ... Mushroom Planet"

"Secret Under the Sea", and some I can barely remember. In one case I remember the cover but not the story.

I was reading SF before I knew what SF was.

A lot of these were Scholastic books that sat around in our elementary school classrooms. Not sure who donated them, but I sure appreciate that someone did. My parents only rarely let me buy these books myself. Also found one of my favorite books on dinosaurs that way.

[highmindedhavi]

47. Watership Down

Tolkien

[dameatball]

62. Great book, but not Tolkien. It was Richard Adams.

There was another book about a huge bear if I remember correctly. "Shardik" or something like that. Good read, but not the classic WD was.

"Watership Down" was one of those rare books in my life when I cried when I finished it. Maybe I am weird, but it touched my soul.

[highmindedhavi]

66. Haha

I meant also read Tolkien.

[dameatball]

67. Oh okay, very much agreed. Thanks.

[TexasProgresive]

48. From the time I was 4 everything with words

Cereal boxes at breakfast and whatever. By the time I started school I was reading 6 grade level and above books. By 6th grade I was in the adult section of the library reading novels of all sorts with historical fiction right at the top. I read "Little Women" at 10 or 11, all the Edgar Rice Burroughs's books- Tarzan, Mars and some inner earth place. Hardy Boys, Tom Swift Jr. and all of the Frank Baum Oz books.

In high school some of my friends and I formed a club that had an official name but we called it the Society for Pseudo Intellectuals. We had lots of useless philosophical discussions and read Tolstoy, Ain Rand and Allen Ginsburg. We were especially enthralled with Ginsburg's "Howl" because it was banned for the use of Fuck. I don't think any of us got his point until later in life. Around this time I discovered SciFi especially Robert Heinlein and Poul Anderson. Also read all of Fleming's James Bond books in order. The movies don't get what Fleming was doing with Bond, he starts out young and full of piss and vinegar and steadily becomes more jaded as he matures, to completely losing himself in You Only Live Twice where he realizes who he really is. That was a good sense to get as a young man.

[dixiegrrrrl]

57. YESSS..I hear you. anything with print.

I was reading well by kindergarten. My grandmother had a huge Webster's dictionary on a revolving stand, like they used in libraries. I would stand in front of it for hours and read definitions, She had a set of encyclopedias, she had a large bookshelf of "the Classic Books Series" that bore gold imprinted titles. Untouched, it appeared.
She let me read them because she knew I would disappear with a book for hours. Thus all the classic authors were stuffed in my head.
My Mom worked, a neighbor lady babysat me, she had every one of the OZ books. I was 8 at the time. Joy.

as a kid, I always had at least a paperback with me, for the car rides, for "go find something to do and stay out of the way" moments.
Now I use my Nook for those times I have to wait.

taught both kids to read around age 4, read stories to them every night, I had learned by then that the first 6 years of a child's life is when the brain grows the fastest, soaks everything right up.

I might go find those James Bond books and see what I missed.

[TexasProgresive]

63. I've found my sister.

One summer on the ranch I read the whole World Book Encyclopedia from A to Z. I had to discipline myself to look up a word in the dictionary to not get distracted by all the other neat words.

[dixiegrrrrl]

64. Mr. dixie and I have learned to watch our movies separaely.

I keep wanting to pause the video so I can lookup something in the script,,a word or phrase, to just gork on how a room is put together. And often use subtitles, cause I remember what I see much better than what I hear.
I wanted to read Dickens, and Trollupe in context of their world, so bought the "companion "books that describes the social, political world of the character. Most helpful.
Basically I focus on the increasingly popular genre known as Social History, and have found some marvelous books.

Finally found out the English phrase " to drop a penny", certain classes of women in England would ask to be excused from a gathering, which would be explained by another character .."she had to go drop a penny".
Meaning using a public toilet area that cost women , but not men, of course, a penny to unlock the stall door.

[Auggie]

49. The Happy Hollisters

[Cartoonist]

60. Hollisters

My friend had a set but his mom wouldn't let him lend them out.

[catbyte]

51. I'm 63, so Nancy Drew was just about the only game in town for girl heroines at the time.

I wasn't into The Hardy Boys because they were, well, boys.

I also loved a little encyclopedia set my mom got from some grocery store--if you bought a certain amount, you could get another volume. They were hard cover and were about 100 pages per volume. I think there were 10 of them, and for the life of me I can't remember now what they were called. I also loved weather books. I've been a weather geek ever since I can remember. It might have something to do with the roof being blown off of our house during a tornado when I was a year old, lol. Nobody was hurt, thank goodness, but I've always wondered if that started my weather geekiness.

[MyOwnPeace]

52. Elementary school

didn't have a library - I was on my own.

Comic books! We had a gang that bought different ones, then we'd trade among ourselves (hated having pages stuck together with Cheerio chunks!).

Jr. Hi was the first library - read books about racing and cars.

Sr. Hi - the classics - I was usually the only one in the class that did read them from cover to cover. Our "class reviews" were usually a 1-on-1 discussion between the teacher and me!

[fierywoman]

53. Nancy Drew. And then I went through my brothers' Hardy Boys!

[Docreed2003]

56. The first "real book" I remember reading

Was "Charolette's Web"...I was a voracious reader from the moment I learned to read and still am, but that was my first chapter book. As an aside, I still have the worn hardcover copy given to my at Xmas by my aunt who wrote an inscription that said it was also one of my dad's favorites.

[MFM008]

58. Books my dad would give me

Sherlock Holmes, poetry, Fairy Tales... Gone With The Wind. Etc.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

65. So many books, from the time I could read.

Many have already named many of my favorites, so I'll mention one that hasn't been named: My Book House Books. It was a series originally published, I'm guessing, in the 1920's. The edition we had when I was a child was published in the late 1930's. It was probably given to us by grandparents around the time my oldest brother was born in 1943. I think they came in different colors, and we had the blue version. The set I currently own, which seems identical to the ones from my childhood, was published in 1937. There were 12 volumes, plus a parent's guide. They are pretty easy to find in second hand stores, or at Half Price Books. Typically, volume 1 is well used, because it's nursery rhymes, which means young parents read that volume over and over to their young child. The later volumes (if you own an older set) show less and less wear, and volumes 10, 11, and 12 are often pristine. Speaking from personal experience, kids will more or less enthusiastically read the earlier volumes on their own, and then lose momentum for the later ones. It's also important to recognize that this series was published when most families owned few or no books, and inexpensive paperback books were non existent.

The set I currently own, given to me by my mother, is typical.

Here's what I best recall: Mom would read to me from volumes 1 and 2 when I was little, and one particular story I recall quite well. I loved it. I made her read it to me as often as possible. And here's the best part. I recall quite distinctly that when she read it to me before I could read myself, I only ever saw the pictures. There were no words on the pages. Then, when I could read, and picked up that book, I was genuinely astonished to see there were words on those pages.

If that isn't the magic of pre and post literacy, I don't know what is.

[Number9Dream]

68. First, Tom Swift Jr., later Edgar Rice Burroughs

Late to the thread, as usual. First got hooked on the Tom Swift Jr. series... must have read 25 of 'em. A cousin turned me on to the John Carter / Mars series, Tarzan series, and Pellucidar series. A little later still, Ray Bradbury.