What did you read as a child ?

[Moemg]

This is another twist on Cuppa Joe's thread on "What did you read to your children "
What did you read as a child ?
I loved all the Nancy Drew mysteries and I also read a series called Trixie Belden which were some of my favorite books .

 

[ziggy29]

Encyclopedias, mostly. I was a geek even when I was 4 years old.

 

[freebird5825]

Encyclopedias, mostly. I was a geek even when I was 4 years old.

Me too. Compton's Abridged was great for grade school level reading.
I also read the unabridged dictionary at the library looking for choice words. I found them all.

The ones I remember...a few Suess books, Heidi, Grimm's Fairy Tales, every one of Walter Farley's Black Stallion & Fury collection, Life magazine, NY Daily News, Alfred Hitchcock paperbacks, Reader's Digest monthly magazine and hardcover condensed books, the abridged home version of Compton's Encyclopedia, Taylor Caldwell, Bullfinch's Mythology, etc etc.

 

[mickeyd]

I can only recall one book that I could actually call my own as a child. The Big Book of Cowboys was the name.

I saw it in the children's section of the library years later while looking for books with my kids. I must have read that book hundreds of times as a child and enjoyed leafing through it at the library. My kids wanted nothing to do with it when I suggested that it looked like a good book.

 

[CoolChange]

Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day was one of my earliest. Rien Poortvliet & Wil Huygen's Gnomes was also a favorite. The Narnia and Middle Earth series were favorites a bit later. Lots of commics: Dennis the Menace, Peanuts, etc.

 

[ProspectiveBum]

As a young kid (2nd grade) I mostly read Highlights magazines that my grandmother gave me. I'm not sure, but I think they may have been from when my Dad and his sibs were kids, because they had a very 1950's feel. By 3rd and 4th grade I'd graduated to The Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown. I think I read every book in those series at least 3 times.

I know I would have loved the Harry Potter books at that age, if they'd been out then. After reading the first book, I'm waiting to read the rest of the series for a few years so I can read with my kids.

 

[Meadbh]

I read everything I could get my hands on, including history, technical manuals, travel and fiction. While I did use the library, I loved the smell and feel of new books and still do (I bought five books while on vacation last week).

 

[Moemg]

I read everything I could get my hands on, ).

I also read constantly . I was always getting in trouble for staying up late and reading with a flashlight .

 

[Meadbh]

I also read constantly . I was always getting in trouble for staying up late and reading with a flashlight .

.....and reading in bed on Saturday mornings....

 

[Mickey]

I read (over and over and over) the Walter Farley Black Stallion series books. The first one was "The Black Stallion" and there were about 18 others, if I recall correctly. I'd read them in [relative] order, then re-read them. Loved 'em!

Yep. I was horse mad.

Marilyn

 

[Sarah in SC]

Me, too on the Black Stallion mysteries, Marilyn. Also the Linda Craig mysteries about the Palomino horse Chica de Oro, and any other horse-related book I could get my hands on! Like others, I was a voracious reader. When Hurricane Hugo came through in 1989, my ruined books required many many many sad wheelbarrow loads to the trash pile.

If I come across any Black Stallion or other books from my youth in a used bookstore, I always pick them up. A non-horse favorite was the Borrowers--still a great read. Also loved the libertarian Girl Who Owned A City by OT Nelson, one I found again and re-read to my delight.

 

[CuppaJoe]

We had a Compton’s also, my dad was notorious for reading straight through the Encyclopedia Britannica (a famous 1920s version) when I was a child. From him, I picked up the habit of reading everywhere. Harley mentioned the “Boxcar Children” which I loved. I checked out a lot of biographies from the grade school library.

 

[jambo101]

By the time i was 8 or 9 i was a Jules Verne junkie..

 

[bright eyed]

I read whatever we had in the house, which included the encyclopedia, mice and men, and some set of academic books for kids my parents bought.

In the youngest years, read all the Fudge, Super Fudge, Ramona books, baby sitter's club, the whole Little House on the Prairie series, Anne of Green Gables series, Little Women, anything from Jane Austen, a few mystery books (not memorable) and as a tween the flowers in the attic series (which I can't believe my generation read, it' s such a twisted series!). Judy Blume definitely helped me thru prepubescence.

 

[NW-Bound]

When I was 9 or 10, I read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carré. No, I did not understand it then. I did not remember the title nor much of the plot, other than the sad ending at the foot of the Berlin wall.

When in my 20's and truly reading this masterpiece, I recalled that I had read it as a child when I reached the end of the novel.

 

[TromboneAl]

Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day

I guess you were preparing for early retirement early.

 

[bbbamI]

The first book I read was Dick and Jane; I think Puff and Spot were involved. When I was in grade school, we had to write five book reports a year. I think that put a nasty taste in my mouth when it came to reading in my younger years.

Of course I always enjoyed....Tiger Beat.

 

[Moemg]

Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day was one of my earliestc.

I really like the Richard Scarry books . I bought most of them for my children.

 

[Purron]

First and foremost, the Narnia books. I loved them as a child and read each many times. I also loved the Little House on the Prairie books given to me by my Kansas grandma. When I entered my teen years, I moved on to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and the Carlos Castaneda books. Perhaps this explains why I'm a little "different".

 

[Coach]

I was a big science fiction fan as a boy -- especially Robert Heinlein, Issac Asimov, and Ray Bradbury.

Coach

 

[Amethyst]

I devoured all reading matter I could get my hands on, age-appropriate or not, understood by me or not.

This included magazines, advice columns in newspapers (I didn't care for current events, and still don't), instruction manuals, a household medical reference from the 1940's, my much older siblings' school books (especially science books and stories), Webster's Dictionary, a set of the Book of Knowledge dating from my father's childhood circa 1920 (talk about non-PC!), everything in the children's section of the tiny local library, and my mother's Year's Best SF Anthologies. One time, Mom brought home a big cardboard box full of Astounding Science Fiction magazines from the 40's and 50's and I devoured them all...no wonder I was less than impressed by the lunar landing.

Also, my mother brought home bound volumes of magazines from the 1880's so there I was, reading serials written for Victorian kids. Definitely an outlier influence.

Then there was the time I got into one of my mother's drugstore novels, a spy story I believe, and asked her what it meant when the man and woman got into bed and "their bodies melted together." I was about 8 and a half. She said I'd understand when I was older and took the book away. I never did find out how it ended.

Almost forgot - Jean Shepherd! "In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash," "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories," and "The Ferrari in the Bedroom." Used to listen to Shep on my little tin radio late at night.

 

[Purron]

Of course I always enjoyed....Tiger Beat.

OMG...Tiger Beat!! Yep, gotta admit to that guilty pleasure too

 

[WhoDaresWins]

Childhood reading

Like many others here, I was a Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden fan. Also the Bobsey Twins. When I was a little older anything by Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, the Brontes, Dickens, Tolstoy, Balzac, O. Henry. We got National Geographic magazine and Mankind magazine, both of which I enjoyed immensely.

 

[Moemg]

Like many others here, I was a Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden fan. Also the Bobsey Twins. When I was a little older anything by Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, the Brontes, Dickens, Tolstoy, Balzac, O. Henry. We got National Geographic magazine and Mankind magazine, both of which I enjoyed immensely.

I forgot about the Bobsey Twins . I also read Cherry Ames student nurse series and Vicky Barr flight attendant . When I was real young I loved The Doctor Dan books (They came with band aids for your dolls ).

 

[Zoocat]

I read the Nancy Drew series too. But the books I really LOVED were the Black Stallion series books. I devoured them and re-read them too.