I suppose I was encouraged to read Lord of the Rings, but I was in high school by that point (I had started it a few years earlier, and it was the first book I ever started reading without finishing*). The only reason I read it later was so I could fully appreciate Bored of the Rings.
My grandmother subscribed me to the All About Books (science) and Heritage Books (History), but I read them without anyone encouraging me. It was sort of “New book? Let me read it.”
I was also into the Tom Swift, Jr., series, but that was on my own accord, too.
Always—although I’m not sure “encouraged” is the right word, if it at all implies I was hesitant. “Recommended” is more like it, as others put it. I was a voracious reader, even as a little kid, as were my parents at my age.
Robert McCloskey? Tom Wolf? Dahl? Bradbury? All good.
No. Unfortunately, neither of my parents were (or are) really big book readers.
My grandparents, however, had a wonderful book collection that I ransacked every time I visited them. And in particular, these books instilled in me healthy skepticism (mostly from Carl Sagan’s books), a love of space and science (from the numerous non-fiction books), and a love of sci-fi (Asimov and many others).
No one ever had to ask me to read these; somehow I grew up loving books despite the relative indifference by my parents.
I can’t remember any specific books because we always had so many around. Both my parents are (still) readers and have stacks of books everywhere (as do I). I know that I had kids’ books like the Little House series and Black Beauty but I also used to go through my parents’ books and pick up whatever looks interesting. (Hint: Myra Breckinridge was probably not appropriate for a 9-10 year old). It’s funny but I remember my grade school librarian trying to recommend something, asking “what kind of books do you like?” and me not being able to say because I needed to just browse and see what looked interesting. Then again, I guess my sister probably recommended most of the books I loved, but that was mostly just having to do everything she did and read everything she read.
This was my parents too. They weren’t against books. In fact, their noses were always buried in bibles and other religious stuff.
But they didn’t do anything actively to encourage us to read. They were glad we were readers, but they can’t take any credit for it.
It was when I got my first library card in the ninth grade that I discovered recreational reading. Prior to that, reading was just something I did for school. I remember coming to school with a copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and a boy laughed at me because he’d read it a long time ago. But the Chronicles were a brand new world for me.
I grew up without a television in the house; books were the entertainment, at least until my brother got a computer in his teens. Every member of my immediate family has gone “Here, read this” and handed me something interesting on at least one occasion.
Mostly though, it’s been my Great Uncle who keeps everyone supplied with books. He used to be a teacher, and ran the school library from his private collection. He lives in a four bedroom house by himself, and basically every room bar the kitchen and bathroom is floor to ceiling books. Even the corridors. Aside from the ‘new shelf’ in the main hallway, he says he’s read all of 'em. Oh, and the house is only around 1/3 of the total he actually owns, the rest are out on loan to family, friends, friends of friends, people who were passing and looked interested…
Almost every time I visited, or he visited us, I got a new bag of recommended books. He’s hunt them down second hand on request as well, normally for pennies.
Alas, his eyesight is starting to go now, and he no longer reads so much. I’m actually finding it quite hard to pick new books for myself, without having them all vetted by him.
**Do you remember any family members encouraging you to read books you loved?
**
Oh, yeah. My dad taught me to read at a very early age and encouraged me to read anything I wanted. I started in on his SF collection and quickly got hooked on Asimov, Heinlein, et al. Pretty soon I branched out to other authors and the next thing I knew, he was raiding my collection!