Well, clearly yes, you are reading me if you are reading this……. In fact I wanted to ask about reading other authors………. other than our very own Pterry.
I was on the train today returning from seeing my son in London and I was knitting – there is a surprise – I was working on my Carnival item in fact. However, when I got to the point where I had to pick up the borders for the neck and the arms I decided that a bumpy train where I was squashed in next to another passenger was possibly not the place to do that…….. So I turned to my book to read. In fact I did not get much read as the family who had come to sit at the same table as me took putting down my needles as a signal that they could ask me lots and lots and lots of questions about knitting. It was fun talking to them and setting them right about modern knitting and yarns. However, I noticed their son, about 8 or 9 years old I would say, was bored the whole journey because he could not get the internet to play games. What a great shame! So many hours of travel have been a chance for me to knit or to read – and on occasion to do both at once………. I felt so sorry for the lad that he had no book to turn to in order to lose himself while he travelled.
As a child I was rarely without a book within reach. I was a member at the library and loved to go into the children’s room and choose books. I remember when I was very young it was Orlando the Marmalade Cat and also Olga da Polga who was a guinea pig – I had a pet ginger cat and also a pet guinea pig. I have just discovered that Olga was written by Michael Bond who also wrote Paddington – and M. Pamplemousse that I love as an adult. I also read books about Harry who was a naughty dog – that has returned to bite me with the arrival of my very own naughty dog – aka Puppy Boy. Bobby Brewster followed and then fairy tales from around the world, like the one about the magic tinderbox and the one about the girl who went to look for strawberries in December, and Baba Yagga…….. I loved reading and had read all the books in my Primary School reading scheme well before I got to the top class! (Primary School = 5 years old to 11 years old with the top class for me being aged 9 to 11.)
When you were a child, which books did you love to read? Did you have a favourite author or series?
Harry was like this when I read about him.
Orlando Books looked like this when I was a child.
When I was a child my favourite author was Jules Verne. And I was very happy that he wrote a lot of books and that my parents bought many of these. We had also an encyclopaedia for children “Tout l’univers” (All the Universe?). I used to take a book of the series at random and to read it at random too. And, ahem, as I’ve already read (and re-read) all the children books at home when I was 8 or 9 (I read a lot and, I understood this many years after, faster than most of people, I was born for that), I stole my mother’s books (Troyat and Zola…).
A house without a book can be a home for me and I discovered very late than some people don’t earn any book (and absolutely not because they are too pour to buy a book).
I loved classics..my favorite book was A Secret Garden….I also liked A Little Princess by the same author – Frances Hodgson Burnett….I also love Louisa May Alcott, especially her Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom….as a teacher, I’m always advertising books for my students to read..
Enid Blyton was my main author as a kid. I started with “The Wishing Chair Again” and went on to read over 200 of her books. Then I started reading horse books. Anything vaguely horse related. Then at age 10 I found Dick Francis and that moved me onto more mature books. I also loved the scholastic catalogues and loved the Flat Stanley books. That’s also what introduced me to Mary Stewart, another of my favourite authors.
We didn’t have a library nearby so one of my neighbors would take me to the library van every fortnight and we’d both take out 10 books. He was also the Queen Mothers gardener and she’d go for walks with him as there was very little he didn’t know about nature.
I read lots and lots as a kid but my hands down favorites were all of the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. Most people only know him for The Wizard of Oz but he went on to write 14 other books about Oz. I still own my original copies. Later I went on to Nancy Drew and similar series and then I moved into Andre Norton, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Isaac Asimov and lots of other early science fiction and fantasy writers.
I also read every Oz book I could get my hands on (before they were banned for being too unrealistic and unsuitable for young readers!). My favorites were the Ruth Plumly Johnson ones and I too have a collection of much loved and battered originals.
I did not know that there were other Oz books…….. Interesting.
L Frank Baum wrote 14 Oz books and a variety of other stuff like plays based on the books. After his death there were 26 more “canon”…or at least books based on his. 19 of those were Ruth Plumly Johson who went a little more traditional than Baum. Three more were written by John R Neill, who illustrated most of them (but not the first one). I love Neill’s very art nouveau illustrations. They are what Oz looks like to me, not the stuffy little drawings of the first book.
I remember liking Narnia when I was around 7 or 8. My Dad used to read me a lot of books as bed-time stories, such as a Finnish children’s book series called “Heinähattu ja Vilttitossu”, Lord of the Rings, Asterix. When I was a bit older (10-13) I fell in love with Harry Potter and His Dark Materials.
Oh, and when I was very very young my favourite book was Dazzle the Dinosaur by Marcus Pfister. I’ve always been a huge fan of dinosaurs.
My favorite books as a small child were the series about Peter Churchmouse, written by Margot Brown. When I was five, I had the measles and was bed ridden for over a week. My mother and grandmother read my father’s childhood copy of Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates to me. As I got older (but not much. My parents let me attempt anything) I read Alice in Wonderland and Winnie the Pooh and Tom Sawyer and Nancy Drew. One summer, under the guidance of my grandmother, I read everything Louisa May Alcott wrote and… Anne of Green Gables, and Girl of the Limberlost. When I was eight, I was gifted a set of “classics” and read Sherlock Holmes and Poe and Shakespeare … my dad loved fantasy and science fiction so I had an early dose of that too.
I was one of those rare kids (many of whom showed up at Nerd Wars) who was told, “Stop that reading and go outside/go to sleep/come eat dinner.
Although I did my best to instill the same love of reading into my children and grandchildren, it didn’t take as well as I would have liked. I’ll put the blame on my husband who still gets angry because I read in the bathroom.
My goodness. I can’t REMEMBER all the favorite books. Pictures along with the stories figured prominently, and when those books were read to my own children, the memories came flooding back. Sendak’s “Little Bear” books, “Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel” the “Bookshelf for Boys & Girls” (encyclopedia brittanica)(I STILL have all these books, and the Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes and Biographies and … all of them! are STILL my favorites. Through them I read Peter Pan, Water Babies, Poems, etc etc etc. As an older child, I was entranced by Nancy Drew, ALL the ‘series’ books, biographies of all kinds, and Seuss. . . he came out more when my sibs were growing up, but i love-love-loved his work! Still do. I read the “SRA” reader program, pamphlets with questions attached, at school. I read the Encyclopedias, any and all nature books, and Trixie Belden series (which i bought with my allowance) Mother ALWAYS had a book in hand… reading was a default activity in our house, and my habit of insomnia was either started by or ameliorated by my reading late into the night.
I remember the first word I learned: “Splash!” I loved it. I thought it SOUNDED like what it was…I was hooked, and have never looked back!
Oh yes, reading schemes…….. We did Janet ad John and then Peter and Jane at school and then one that I do not know the name of when we were further up the school – I just flew through them. I remember clearly that we had a reading age test once a year and when I went up (early) to Mr. Bailey’s class at age 9 I had a reading age of 15. Odd what things stick in your mind!
My favorite books read to me when I was wee little were P.J. Funnybunny (who was the Very Bad Bunny, and hence I can’t be blamed for the way I grew up with such early influances). I still have most of them, grandma could read them to me every day and I loved it to bits. The other one was “The Monster at the End of This Book” which was done by Grover who, *SPOILER ALERT* turned out to be the monster! Every time. I used to scream and squeal at grandpa, “NOOOO!!! Don’t let her turn the PAGE!” because every page you turned you got closer to the monster!
Then I graduated straight to animal care books. I remember taking a little book on Anole Care everywhere for awhile sounding out the big words and giving my mother fits over lizard care facts. “Did you know lizards…” “You will never own a lizard in my house!!! Blah la la I can’t hear you!!!” (Jokes on her, I have 2 leopard geckos. As an adult, in my OWN house! Bwahaha!)
Yes, I was a very strange child (and not much has changed!)
I STILL have lots of animal care books too. I almost through out the Smallholders Vet Book recently as I don’t foresee any goats in my future but then I started skimming through it and an hour later just put it back on the shelf. I, too, have a leopard Gecko!
Testing to see if my Gravatar works. 3Himmies – I too was a read ALL the time kid and am disappointed that my kids aren’t. My daughter does read but she has to find a book she likes then she’ll read everything in the series. My son will read any graphic novel, (including unfortunately our Halo novels and other video game novels which aren’t exactly appropriate for a 9 year old) or encyclopedia such as Guinness book of records and Dr Who guides.
I always had my nose in a book as well – and my son has also inherited a love of reading though he goes in fits and starts, if you follow me.
Oh my…. I started reading at a young age, so there’s a lot. I recall beginning with MacGuffin’s Readers, Nancy Drew shortly thereafter, Madeline L’Engle, Shel Silverstein, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and numerous types of encyclopedias. I adored *Mr. Popper’s Penguins.” I loved Beatrix Potter and Paddington Bear. I’m running out of memory.
When I entered my early teens, I started with mysteries and suspense novels: Dick Francis, Robert Ludlum, Agatha Christie, Lawrence Sanders, Lillian Jackson Braun, to name a few.
When I was little, my favorite book was “Small Bear’s Birthday Party”; even then I loved a well-illustrated book. When I got older, I loved Carol Ryrie Brink’s “Baby Island”… and read it over and over and over again. Also Anne of Green Gables, the Little House books, Trixie Belden…
My sister was quite surprised when I was in college and decided to read my Paddington Bear books because I’d never read them. She thought I was such a Paddington fan. I was, but my Paddington books were what my mother would read to me as a treat if I went to bed a little early. I’d get my Paddington Bear and hug him and we would listen to the stories about him. So I never considered actually reading the books myself despite the fact that they had a prized place on my bookshelf.
I bought “Where’s My Cow” for the young Doodle when she was born. It is becoming “the most chewed book in the world” and has already suffered a few repairs but she loves it and I get to read it several times a day.
We’ll wait a while before we graduate to “The Book of Poo”.
Oh so many book friends are coming to mind! I have greater memories of the books I read than my “real” childhood! I was an only child til 12 and read thru most of the school and local library. My parents did not buy toys except at birthdays and christmas but would buy books all the time. Especially the Scholatic reader stuff. This is actually strange because they are not big readers. I tried to pass it on to my kids but they refused, then my daughter married an english major. I knew it would be okay when the youngest grandbaby would bring me a book as soon as he could hold it. Early childhood favorites were the Bobbsey twins, Boxcar children, Nancy Drew, etc. The oddest series was a set called “Cherry Ames, Nurse” it was in the “Young Adult mystery” section and that girl had so many jobs (and crime followed) I wonder why on Earth anyone ever hired her!
My sister was a Cherry Ames fan, but somehow I never read any. I think perhaps the books lived at our grandparents’ house so they weren’t readily available for me to stumble upon.
Reading always happened around our house while I was growing up. Let’s see what I can remember. Dr Suess started pre-school and lasted thru 1st grade, I think. (I know I was bored silly with Dick and Jane at school). By 3rd grade, I was making my way thru all the Hardy Boys books and I never got into Nancy Drew. 6th grade was all about horses, so The Black Stallion and Misty of Chincoteague were on the list then. By 7th & 8th grades, I was upsetting the librarian by not staying in an ‘age appropriate’ section and reading Ian Flemming’s James Bond books, Huxley, Orwell, etc. My boyfriend was a senior, so whatever was on his reading list was on mine.
Dad’s home office was a smallish room with floor to ceiling bookshelves on 3 walls, so there was always something interesting to grab. All types of poetry, E. A. Poe, James Herriot, even the encyclopedia was picked up for light reading. Most of the children’s books I have read were read as an adult when I went to find things for my kids to read. Never got into the “cat who..” books, but read several of Rita Mae Brown’s books.
Current fav authors include the wonderful Sir PTerry, Ellis Peters, Elizabeth Peters, and Louise Penny. I am rather OCD about series, so when I find a book I like, I go looking for all the books written by that author and read them in order.