If you even remember, what was the first genuine novel you ever read? I’m excluding non-fiction here, simply to eliminate occasional looking stuff up.
To start, I clearly remember looking at comics in this store when I was about 7 years old. Saw an intriguing paperback with a Mars scene, swords and all, and picked it up and thumbed through it. One name just kind of resonated with me: Dejah Thoris.
Hmmm. I actually had my dad buy the book for me and quickly found I was WAY out of my depth. It was a tough read. But it was fascinating to me, and my own mental images were so much better than the graphic comics could ever do.
I had to use a dictionary fairly often (yeah, a real paper dictionary), and I had to get my parents to explain some things to me. But I did love the story. It was tough, but it did open up a whole new world to me. I guess this is where my love for science fiction came from.
I am not a genius. Again, for me, at 7 YO, it was a tough thing to get through. Feel free to laugh, that’s OK…but I did struggle greatly, honestly.
(Note: I do not remember the exact title. Obviously, it was by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and had to do with the John Carter of Mars character. In later years, I read all of these, as well as others by the same author. Then my horizons expanded and expanded)
Anyway, do you remember the first fictional piece you ever read? Did it influence your subsequent literary development? Feel free to add anything that you regard as important.
I remember teaching myself to read at age 4. The book was “Mutt and Jeff” about two Scottie dogs. It was a rainy Saturday afternoon, my mother was ironing, and my brother was bringing the ironed clothes to our rooms on his “horse” (the vacuum cleaner).
The first adult book I read had to be an Ed McBain mystery. My mother was a huge fan from the beginning, and they were always in our house.
It may not have been the first, I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t, but Lad: A Dog was one of the first. I did read comic books earlier. There were also some of those little orange backed books with the silhouette drawings on the cover of some historical figure – whether they were biographies or not is a judgment call – that I probably read before Lad. (Best I can recall the author was somebody like Payson (maybe Payton) Terhune.)
I think the first book I read that had chapters but no pictures was a biography of Helen Keller. I read that when I was 7. I also read a biography of George Washington and **Little House in the Big Woods ** that same year.
The first book of any kind that I read was a childrens book about an alley cat named Buttons. That would have been when I was about five or six.
I don’t remember the first books or anything, but I read Beverly Cleary in Kindergarten. I read Ann of Green Gables in first grade but it was pretty tough.
My mom taught me (my brother as well) to read at a very young age. When she read to us, she’d have us on her lap and she’d point to each word as she said it. Our brains figured the whole reading thing out from that and by age 3 could read little golden books on our own.
I remember hating to learn to read, I have a very clear memory of being frustrated with flashcards my dad was helping me with.
In first (or maybe second grade?) our class was divided into little groups and we took turns visiting “stations” around the room with different things to do. I ended up at the “reading” station and was angry and bored, so many fun things to do and I got stuck in reading!
I picked up a book called Ozma of Oz and that was it for me - a lifetime love of reading was born right there, I didn’t want to move stations again! I still have a very tender spot in my heart for Ozma, I am always scouring used bookstores for a decently priced first edition.
I don’t think this was really the first novel I read – there was a bunch of Nancy Drew and stuff my family picked out for me – but it is the first book I remember picking out at the library myself, taking home and really loving. Magic or Not by Edward Eager.
I think it was called “The Shy Stegasaurus of Sunset Creek.” However, I also read James And the Giant Peach at a rather young age, and I’m not sure which one came first.
King of the Wind : The Story of the Godolphin Arabian by Marguerite Henry, Wesley Dennis. It may not have been the first novel I read, but it’s the first one I remember reading, around age six or seven. It was a wonderful story and I highly recommend it as a gift to little girls who love books and horses.
Most everyone replying so far has mentioned their ages. When I mentoned Lad: A Dog (qualifying it as maybe not being the first book I read) I had and have no real idea how old I must have been when I read it. I’m thinking not all that young, maybe 11 or 12 or so. Surely I read books before that. I just don’t remember them. School books on Geography, History, Current Events, and that sort of thing, I would surely have read. But I don’t remember being assigned a book to read and report on having read until Junior High years. I would have been going on 12 by then.
It’s caused me to think of a similar idea that I believe I’ll start a new thread on:
What was your earliest source of information beyond what your parents told you?
So as not to hijack this thread I ask those with similar curiosities to find that other thread.
I don’t remember exactly what the first ‘real’ book was, but I can still remember the first time I read A Secret Garden, The Little Princess, Pippi Longstocking and all the Little House books.
The whole world of reading was like a magical wonderland.
According to my mom, I was reading very early on. I remember getting 51 Sycamore Lane, or, A Spy In The Neighborhood for my 3rd birthday. I’m told I loved reading as a toddler, but that’s the first book that I truly recall reading, especially since I must’ve read it 20 times. I can still rattle off all the main character’s names, and give a pretty detailed description of the plotline (actually, plotlines…it was more or less two books in one).
Apart from the Bible (go ahead and laugh) and comics (yeah go ahead and laugh) the first fictional novel (not counting things like the 5 Chinese Brothers and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, around the time I was 8 I got a hold of “The Call of The Wild” for a book report – I then began looking for books, buying anything I could at school (I didn’t find out there were bookstores until Jr. High—go ahead and laugh) that’s when I found ERB, Ray Bradbury, Asimov and other greats.