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'!

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

You guys & gals have an outstanding memory, I have no clue as to what would have been my first 'book' although I have some vague recollections of small illustrated children books. The first real book I remember reading avidly was Bram Stoker's Dracula when I was 10 or 11. Apart from that I remember spending hours browsing different encyclopedias as a kid (if that counts as reading).

[Darlica]

The memory isn't that outstanding, my mom and I talked about this yesterday and she corrected me, telling me that the first book I read on my own was one about Dinosaurs.

 

[Bluenose]

I have been reading for as long as I remember.  I have no idea what the first book I chose was, there has always been books in my life.  I do however, recall an event during my first year at primary school:  I said something to the teacher about something I had read in The Times that morning.  She said that I could not have read it and that my mother must have read it to me.  I insisted that I did, so she told me to come to the teachers room at lunch time where she took a copy of The Times, opened it at random and said something like "Well Mr smarty pants, read that..."  which I proceeded to do.  Of course there were some words I did not know, but after all these years I can still remember the look on her face.  Priceless!

[Sibling Chatty]

Reminds me of when we moved to Houston.

I did my 4th grade Current Events report from Times Magazine, not the newspaper. My teacher was furious, especially when I asked her if she would have preferred the Wall Street Journal, since the library also had it.

We had a meeting with Mom THAT AFTERNOON.

Mom pointed out that we went to the library twice a week, and that I was NOT restricted to any one section. Oh, and that I read my Dad's college textbooks (sciences, plant taxonomy, etc.) and did just fine... Then she had me read a bit from a book at random from the principal's shelf, and we left.

The teacher had put me in the 'low' reading group because we'd moved there from a small town, without ever testing me. She ALSO managed to have some pretty snotty stuff put on my school records that we had removed 3 years later by way of a lawsuit. (She lost her teaching license over it.) I'm a LOT of things, but NOT 'borderline retarded'.

[pieces o nine]

[SNIP]
She ALSO managed to have some pretty snotty stuff put on my school records that we had removed 3 years later by way of a lawsuit. (She lost her teaching license over it.) I'm a LOT of things, but NOT 'borderline retarded'.

By any chance, Chatty, did your old teacher then move to Nebraska and become a Dominican nun, just in time for me to be switched to parochial school in 4th grade?

[Black Bart]

 

Nobody got my joke...The Marooned Pirate?

I'll get my coat.

[Sibling Chatty]

[SNIP]
She ALSO managed to have some pretty snotty stuff put on my school records that we had removed 3 years later by way of a lawsuit. (She lost her teaching license over it.) I'm a LOT of things, but NOT 'borderline retarded'.

By any chance, Chatty, did your old teacher then move to Nebraska and become a Dominican nun, just in time for me to be switched to parochial school in 4th grade?

Nope.

She married a doctor that later became the 'biggest man' in breast augmentation. And other plastic surgeries. 20 years later, she looked like...yetch, it was disgusting... I recognized her at a meeting of florists and 'hospital auxiliary workers' by her obnoxious voice. The double D cups and the 23 new and different facial features still didn't hide the ugly, though.

She'd have been better off as a nun. The silicone wandered a LOT....

[Griffin NoName]

Nobody got my joke...The Marooned Pirate?

I'll get my coat.

Yeh we did. We were all sniggering at you secretly

[Opsa]

(Posted with Griffin. Sniggering with Griffin, too.)

Eww on the wandering silly-cones.

But hey- Chatty- we had the Childcraft series, too and I very well remember the Children's poetry volume. The one we had had some early illustrations by Walt Disney before he became a big time animator. I think that's where I first read "The Pirate Dom Durk of Dowdee" poem, still my favorite pirate poem.

I rememeber there was a real sad poem in there that fascinated me about a potato that fell in love with the queen of the fairies. Broke my heart. They don't show kids that sort of tragedy nowadays.

[Sibling Chatty]

I remember the potato one!!

The one that drove Mom nuts was "Darling DillikeyDollikey Dinah" (Niece she was to the Empress of China, Fair, I swear, as a morning in May...)

I had it memorized (all 4 pages of it) by the time I was 5, and that was when I still had the lisp, so it was...terminally cute.

We had every series of books ever. How and Why, Childcraft, you name it, they bought it, trying to keep ahead of two kids that fought over reading the newspaper, the cereal boxes, anything...

[Opsa]

("...when Hai Kokalorum [sp?] stole her away!") 

I found an earlier edition of some of the Childcraft books for the Opsalette at a church bazaar some years ago. They have line illustrations and some of the content is different, but some of the poems are the same.

Egads, the poor potato. There was a sad shot of him lying in the ash bin. I'm going to see my Mom this weekend (we're going to the opera). Maybe she'll lend the book to me and I can get a pic of the sad potato in here. Maybe he can be our "utterly defeated" emoticon or something.

[stellinacadente]

I do not recall reading a proper book, but I remember my imagination being very much carried away by Atlas... I would look at the maps and "fly" to the place in the world and imagine what wonders might be hiding there...

I guess that's what got me going on my extensive travel... and ending up living my life abroad

Do Atlas count?

[Opsa]

Of course! I think that's a very interesting influence.

[Sibling Qwertyuiopasd]

I could stare at large maps all day... and complain about the Mercator Projection.

What I'd love is a map that goes from pangea to present day, every so slowly. like, 1million years a minute? That should be slow enough, right?

~Qwerty

[Opsa]

I did an animation of that once for the Smithsonian. It used to play in the Natural History museum.

I still have some animation I helped with playing in the Conquest of Land area there, I think. I'll have to show it to you.

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I don't remember seeing that when I was there last summer. I would have been drawn to anything like that (hey, spawn of two generations of geologists--can't help it).

I'd be interested in seeing whatever you have about that, Op.

Anybody else read those Little Golden Books as a kid? I loved the non-Disney ones. Those were great.

[anthrobabe]

I still have my Childcraft "Make and Do" book from the series-- taught one how to make a potato stamper and stamp pad with paper towels and food color 'ink' and how to sew a pet octopus and many, many more activites.

[Black Bart]

The original Thomas the Tank Engine Books were amongst my childhood favourites:

[Opsa]

I don't remember seeing that when I was there last summer. I would have been drawn to anything like that (hey, spawn of two generations of geologists--can't help it).

I'd be interested in seeing whatever you have about that, Op.

Anybody else read those Little Golden Books as a kid? I loved the non-Disney ones. Those were great.

Apparently it's still there, according to this site

"Fossil Plants and Animals: The Conquest of Land

- Permanent
1st Floor, East Wing, (2nd half of Hall 4), near Dinosaurs Hall
This exhibition focuses on the earliest plants and animals to evolve the complex adaptations needed to live on land. In an animated video, evoking television coverage of the first lunar landing, characters Frank Anchorfish and Arthur Pod explain the characteristics plants and animals needed to pioneer the harsh, dry terrestrial environment. Just beyond an arbor formed by a diorama of the first forests are still more fossils: specimens of a 16-foot fossil of an early tree, Callixyon; other fossil trees and smaller plants from the ancient coal forests of North America."

...But as I recall, it's just a small screen with a continous loop playing without much fanfare.

I sure do remember Little Golden Books, especially The Poky Little Puppy and the Richard Scarry ones.

[pieces o nine]

Not my first books, but among the most memorable was this Lloyd Alexander series. A few years ago I bought the whole set (can't believe I never had my own copies -- just kep checking them out from the librarium!) for my nephew.

Also: The Tripods!

[Black Bart]

This was James:



Oh it's taking me back

[Aggie]

The memory isn't that outstanding, my mom and I talked about this yesterday and she corrected me, telling me that the first book I read on my own was one about Dinosaurs.

Me too - well, definitely not the first, but the one I read most avidly when young was  The Natural History Of The Dinosaur by John Man.  I'm not even sure what age I started on it...  it was a gift from an aunt, and although I'm not sure if they were on consecutive birthdays (Christmas maybe?) but I also received from her my most beloved childhood toy, a handmade stuffed-fabric diplodocus who went by the name of Floppy.  I suppose I must have been fairly young....  he stuck around long enough to require patching and eye-button replacement on more than one occasion.  Might have him stashed away in a box somewhere.

One of the first novels I recall choosing and reading was The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary, which would have been at around 5 years old as it was definitely from the school library. I read all of her books that I could get my hands on.  I suppose that's where my habit of latching on to a single author at a time (mostly for fiction) comes from.

I read pretty much anything and everything that I could, otherwise, so 'first book' is a tough one to be accurate on.