Probably a difficult question for most. If you’ve read my bio on here, then you know I mention one book in it. A book written by Avi several years ago. I read it in middle school. I think I may have mentioned it as the first book I remember reading, but I think it may better be classified as the first book I remember enjoying reading.
I don’t know what I read in elementary school besides R.L. Stine. I can tell you for certain that I wasn’t reading anything by Mrs. Rowling, though the first books would have been released during my elementary years.
So if I was put on the spot and asked this question I’d say books by R.L. Stine and Avi really got me into reading. Though I can’t hardly remember any of the books I read.
Can you name the book that sparked your interest in reading?
Johnny Reads 
Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators series (Kinda like The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew, but much better!)
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Hmmm. I’m a little familiar with your comparisons, but I don’t know the Three Investigators one.
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Very difficult to answer. I’d like to say ‘War and Peace’ although it was probably ‘Famous Five’
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War and Peace!? Isn’t that a ginormous brick of a book? I don’t know Famous Five, though you’re not the only one to mention it.
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Ya that was a joke. I haven’t even finished reading War and Peace yet and probably never will
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Whoops. My sarcasm radar must be broken. 😕
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Famous Five and The Lone Pine series.
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Uh oh. You’re the second person to mention Famous Five and I don’t know it. Are they series for young readers?
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Enid Blyton from the 1950s to late 1970s. Then she began to be considered not so good for students but she created adventure books and characters to follow. Hooks to keep you reading. She was then looked down on but probably similar to Stine in that you wanted to finish the book. Very old fashioned language now!
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Hmm. Well what happened? Was she writing about more adult oriented things or something else? I mean, I’ve heard of current YA series being assigned in school now. Sure there are some that can offer students some insight, but there are others that just leave you scratching your head when they’re assigned.
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I think she was considered too easy to read! But that was the charm. Adventures with 4 kids and a dog. Too innocent perhaps these days. The baddies were usually a gang of thieves or smugglers.
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Too easy? Hmmm. Lots can be learned from simpler reads.
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Indeed, especially getting to the end!
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Mhm.
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I also think Enid Blyton is considered rather … outdated in her views on race. She had Gollywogs in her Noddy books and the bad guys in her adventure stories (such as the Famous Five) were usually swarthy foreigners up to no good, defeated by ‘jolly good’ ‘top hole’ middle class white children with ‘pluck and ‘spunk’ and all the other attributes English children were supposed to have so they could go out and defend the Empire.
A little out of step with the times 🙂
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Hmm. Well no one had said that. I guess you’re probably right.
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That’s her reputation over here, I’m afraid – mildly racist overtones. Nothing over the top, but an undercurrent. But they are old books and things change
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Oh. Maybe it’s not so bad that I haven’t read her then.
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Well, she did write a good yarn. It’s just you need to skim over some of the other bits
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And I’m sure there are plenty of others who wrote good stories, but who’d be a little outdated now. It’s easy to criticize others in different eras.
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Very true. She wasn’t intentionally promoting a racist ideology – most people would’ve shared her views and thought nothing of them. Times have changed, that’s all
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Yep. Authors are no different from other people who we might scratch our head at.
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A Wrinkle in Time!
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Oh no. I started that and never finished it. 😳 But I still have it.
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It’s so great–I loved it as an eight-year-old and love it as an adult. Try again!
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I will. Especially since it’s short. And I’ll do a video for it whenever I do.
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The Chronicles of Narnia! They were the first “real” books I read on my own, when I was 9ish, and I looooved them. They turned me into a huge bookworm, and I started reading a lot after that. Even now they’re still some of my favorite books, and I still wish I could visit Narnia….they really sparked my love for fantasy. 😛
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Hmmm. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’ve thought about reading them. But I haven’t. 😳
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“Puppies Are Like That” by Jan Pfloog. I could read it by myself before I was 3 years old (actually reading it, not just memorized, because I read other books, too) and yet I pronounced the author’s name “Faloo-falog.”
Funny thing is… I don’t remember the act of learning how to read it happened when I was so young. Started reading the minute I could form words and never stopped!
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I think you pronounced that name fairly well for your age. 😂 I also don’t remember learning to read. I just remember story time in class.
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Possibly the first read that really affected me was a short story written by James Hurst, The Scarlet Ibis. Amazing, but sad, story. As far as a book, the first that comes to mind is The Lord of the Flies.
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Hmm. The Lord of the Flies was a good one. Though I font think I read it until high school.
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Ways to live forever by Sally Nicholls 😍
I read it when I was 11 and I still love that book!
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Have you read it since then?
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I haven’t read it recently but I’ve read it more than 21 times in a span of 3 or four years.
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Holy crap.
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Its such a beautiful book, and the author has written so many wonderful books since then 🙂
It’s worth reading it. 🙂
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No doubt in my mind.
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To Kill A Mockingbird was the book for me. I read it in school and I finished the entire book before we were even supposed to be done the first three chapters. Then I read it again, and again and again. I loved it so much. Hart Potter deserves an honourable mention as well!
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How old were you when you first read it? I just read it this year for the first time. A great, great book. I’ve only read the first two Harry Potter books. I’m taking my time. Cause I don’t want the books to end. I don’t reread.
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Maybe 13? I had read a lot before I actually read To Kill A Mockingbird but I just remember that book really throwing me into the literary world. That was it for me! Ahhhh Harry Potter, I can say I’ve read each one multiple times, so very worth it. Definitely take your time and enjoy! 🙂
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Hmm. I’m actually glad I waited for that one. Such a serious book. I read some really serious stuff in middle school, but I’m not sure I would have appreciated it as much if I’d been forced to read it. And I will! I read the first last year and the second earlier this year. I have them all so hopefully I can finish by 2020. 😂
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The Magic Faraway Tree for me, another Enid Blyton one. I read this (and the Enchanted Wood) before progressing on to the Famous Five and the Secret Seven.
Haven’t read them in years so not sure how they fare up now, but at the time they were truly magical reads.
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Hmm. I don’t think I’d known any of her books before everyone mentioned them here.
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Harry Potter was probably it, as cliché as that is. HP first came out when I was around 6 years old, so I can’t imagine much that could have come before it. I did rip through a ton of Goosebumps and Baby Sitters Club in early childhood though. As well as The Magic Treehouse and Wayside School. Pretty much any series with 100+ books in it that I could go through one after the other was what sparked my reading.
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Not cliché. I think I was five when the first came out. I remember seeing the first few books in my middle school library and thinking about reading them, but I never did. I’m familiar with all of those series you mentioned, but only ever read Goosebumps.
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How lovely to see so many British books and writers named here – we’ve scored some success on the kid’s book front, then (largely thanks to Jo Rowling, of course) 🙂
My own story concerns another British book – a really obscure one called Charlotte Sometimes which also inspired a song by The Cure. A boarding school story with added time travel. I remember it being gripping 🙂
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Mhm. Though my two were American. 😉 I feel like I know that title, but them I can’t think of what it is. Hmmm.
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Ah, yes I thought yours were – I meant some of the others. Might be the song you have a vague memory of? More famous than the book, I think 🙂
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I know. And I don’t know. Perhaps.
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I don’t know for sure but the first book I can remember reading on my own was Little House In the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I do know my mom was an avid reader and is the one who got me started.
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People come into the store all the time for her books. Hmm.
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They’re great for the young reader; especially of the female persuasion. They’re fairly easy to read, written about her life from the time she was little (5 years old I think) to after she got married and had her daughter.
Other books, good for the slightly older reader, are the Ann of Green Gables series and the Heidi series. I’ve read all three series many times over the years and enjoyed them each time I read them.
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I’m sure. I didn’t know they were written like that. There are a few series written for teens years ago that are still well read.
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I’m naming a few books that I can attribute my love of reading to. Where the Red Fern Grows and From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler were the two books that two of my teachers read aloud in class in elementary school. I couldn’t wait to hear what was going to happen, and I think that experience of hearing those stories read out loud is where my love of books began. The teachers would read to us after lunch.
On my own I read Follow My Leader by James B Garfield which I remember buying from the Scholastic book catalog we’d get once a month in school. I moved on to Judy Blume’s famous Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret? and the Cherry Ames nurse series by 6th grade. These books are old and probably only the Judy Blume book might be familiar. I wonder, do kids get read to anymore in elementary school past the 2nd grade? Fourth grade is when I got interested in books and from 4th-6th grade is when books really became important to me.
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Hmm. A very good question. I remember getting read to in first grade. I’m not sure about after that. Definitely something to think about. And I’m only vaguely familiar with two books you mentioned. But I never read them. I do know Where the Red Fern Grows us assigned in schools now. But I’m not sure which grade level.
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