Your first book?

[Darlica]

What was the first book you choose yourself? And or the first book you remember reading on your own unaided?


The first book I choose myself was "naturboken" Book of nature a richly illustrated flora and fauna in one book, I was 3 years old and mom tried hard to make me interested in some childrens books instead but it didn't work, I wanted the naturebook like only a 3 year old can want something...

I still got it, worn to pieces by use, it proved to be a very useful book.  

The first book I read myself I'm not so sure of, but with 98% security I think it was something by Astrid Lindgren, probably either Pippi Långstrump or Emil i Lönneberga.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I really liked dinosaur books as a little girl. First one I read voluntarily was The Hobbit, I think.

[beagle]

Can't remember the first but two early ones were "Man the Inventor"  a (pre-political correctness) factual book about famous inventions, and one called something like "Around the World with the Golden Gleaner". That was a boy's own adventure type book about travelling on a merchant navy ship between the exotic imperial (as was) ports.  The Wind in the Willows is probably the earliest one of which you might have heard. Also had loads of Doctor Who spin-off stuff (Troughton years onwards).

[Sibling Qwertyuiopasd]

Either Ping, a childs book about some duck in china, or The Hobbit.

Ping I say since from my bed in my room I could see the library shelf outside my room, and in 2nd gradeish I kept noticing the book at the end of the shelf, was Ping. I was like "WTF IS THIS?" so I read it.

but the Hobbit is actually like, a book, and I read it straight through in 4th grade.

[pieces o nine]

My first three books were selected from some kind of premium offer on a cereal box or something. (We seldom ordered things, and never from places like that, so it stands out in my mind.)

I'm guessing I was ... assisted ... in making my choices, but they're still in a dark corner of my library, battered 'leatherette' covers, (oooo!) faded yellow pages and all:
L Frank Baum: Wizard of Oz
Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland
Anna Sewell: Black Beauty

Two of them remain favorites to this day, with characters I have borrowed for exegesis assignments and some artwork.

[Griffin NoName]

Can't remember. I started reading very young and can't remember ever not being able to. I was slave labour and had to teach all the other kids in school to read. We went to the public library every week so I would have been choosing books from pratically day one on earth. I'd read right through the local public (large) childrens library by the age of around 8. I can remember the first Trilogy I chose: Eustace and Hilda by L.P.Hartley (he of the Go-Between) and for a year or so I always read trilogies. About aged 9 then. After that, it was the adult library and stuff like Proust. I remember reading Ulyses and that being a step too far. It was a bit of light relief when I got to senior school (aged 11) and they gave us reading lists with books like The Prisoner of Zenda and Great Expectations.

I can remember I hated Rupert Bear.

[Swatopluk]

Can't say which book I read first myself. My mother tended to read to me a lot and so the transition is very fuzzy. The first full book I read several times was Die gefesselten Gespenster (the tied-up ghosts) about a multinational group of youngsters from Marseille that travel by car (from the junkyard) to the St.Tropez area to help a businessman get rid of the haunting in his castle (caused by the son of the previous castle owner that the businessman forced to sell the property to him).
Unfortunately I only own an abridged copy of it today.

[Black Bart]

My mum always says that I read David Copperfield when I was five, but considering how illiterate I am now I think that must be a lie.

[Griffin NoName]

That's a bit harsh on your Mum. Maybe it's merely apocryphal and you actually read David and the Worry Beast.

[pieces o nine]

We had a Carnegie Library (dark-stained hardwood stacks, dim lighting, marble floors) and a "children's annex" next door when I was a kid. The librarians caught me following Mom into the "adult library"  [--unintended comedy, that--]  more than once and shooed me back to the Annex, wrongly profiling me as a junior Vandal.

I would then trudge over to the the Annex, wallowing in the Injustice of being banished to the Baby Books. On one of the last of these occasions, I seized the first picture book to hand and began a dramatic reading to express my outrage with Stoopid Rooles.

"A frog."  [turn page]  "Sat on a log."  [turn page]  "In a bog."  [turn page]     

Reaching the end of *that* in mere seconds, I looked tragically down the aisle when another book jumped out at me.  "Romping through pie...his...iss?  ...  Romping through fih...sis?  Romping through phy...sics." Hmmm,  that was a new word...  No baby colors.  No baby words.  No baby illustrations.  This was ... a BOOK! It was a gripping read and left an impression I still remember mumblety years later. Best of all, after that they let me into the "adult library".

[Opsa]

I have vague memories of Winnie the Pooh books, Wind in the Willows, Curious George and something called "Lion", which was a weirdly fascinating French story about an angel who gets early fame for designing the worm, but then gets into a slump until he comes up with the design for the lion. I remember that he had it chirping softly until someone suggested it should make a noise like thunder, so he went with that idea.

The first books I rememeber buying for myself were a set called "The Bunny's Nutshell Library". I think I was around 8 and it was at a school book fair. I still have these tiny books and they still charm me. The Opsalette loves them, too.

The first chapter book I sat down and read straight through was "Charlotte's Web".

[anthrobabe]

The first book memory is of "The Tawny Scrawny Lion" -- a Little Golden Book where the rabbits outsmart the lion.
I have been reading for as long as I can remember-- everything-- but for some reason that stands out so it is possibly a correct memory-- isn't memory a strange thing.

[Sibling Chatty]

Mom says she walked in on me at about age three, reading aloud to my toy fox, from the Childcraft books of children's poetry.

So she handed me Wind in the Willows and I read that.

My 18 months older sister thought I should do everything she did, and assorted neighbors from that era remember me knowing my alphabet by the time I was barely walking. One woman recently regaled us with tales of taking care of me when I was 17 months old, and listening to me 'babble' then realizing that I was saying the correct answers to the questions her 2nd grader was answering about a story they'd just read aloud.

I'm not sure I believed it until she hauled out a DVD of their old home movies, and there was me, her and a bunch of flash cards. She'd show the letter to the camera, then to me, and have me go get something that began with that letter. For D, she'd put a doll at the end of the table, but I dragged in her dog instead. For B, I brought her the "baby"....the doll.

So book with story must have been Wind in the Willows, but I evidently was into poetry earlier...

[beagle]

So book with story must have been Wind in the Willows...

Still the best reference book ever on the fears and aspirations of the English middle classes IMHO.

[Black Bart]

Oh it's all coming back to me now...

Primary School...

We had the 'The Red Pirate', 'The Blue Pirate' and 'The Marooned Pirate'!