# The first fictional book you remember reading & loving on your own. What do you think of it now? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 5, 2013, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-fictional-book-you-remember-reading-loving-on-your-own-what-do-you-think-of-it-now/649413 "2013-02-05T19:27:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2013, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-fictional-book-you-remember-reading-loving-on-your-own-what-do-you-think-of-it-now/649413/81 "2013-02-09T10:19:38Z")
I read a lot of pulp fiction as a kid (the Susan Series, Laura’s Summer Ballet as the grossest examples). 😃 But the first one that stood out for me was **The Fire in the Stone** , by Colin Thiele, which I read when I was about 9 yrs old, and my old copy has long since worn out: I found another copy a few years ago in a second-hand bookshop and snaffled it up. I still read it every now and again. Whilst ostensibly a children’s book, the language and the lessons conveyed are really more appropriate for adults. Dammit…I still cry in the final chapter! You’d think after all these years I’d manage to get over it. Nope, sorry, fuggit. ☹ There’s also **Hill End** , and **Ash Road** by Ivan Southall: my mum had a thing for Aussie literature. And despite her other shortcomings, I bless her every day for the introduction. Those paperbacks (the originals) are still in my bookshelf…waiting for my little grandbabbies to be reading! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-fictional-book-you-remember-reading-loving-on-your-own-what-do-you-think-of-it-now/649413/82 "2013-02-10T20:21:35Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > It’s the “on your own” stipulation that’s hardest for me. My mom was a teacher, and a lover of books, and she fed my habit like a crack dealer. So just through sheer volume, I didn’t do a lot of my own book picking, 'cause Mom always had another three at the ready when I finished one. > [ Of course the thread’s almost a week old at this point, but by “own your own” I mean that no one read the book to you, not that it wasn’t recommended to you by anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-fictional-book-you-remember-reading-loving-on-your-own-what-do-you-think-of-it-now/649413/83 "2013-02-10T20:50:46Z")
> [@MsWhatsit](#): > > Was there any doubt? > > One of the nuns at the Catholic school I attended in second grade suggested L’Engle to me, and I devoured it. It was my first exposure to anything you might call fantasy or science fiction, and I have never stopped loving the genre. > > I re-read _Wrinkle in Time_ to my kids for a bedtime story not long ago and I think it holds up pretty well. I think it holds up marvelously, though the rest of the Time Quintet is not nearly as good. That said, I think L’Engle was at her absolute best with her non-fantasy stuff; I specifically mean the Austin series, the best of which is _A Ring of Endless Light_. I refuse to read it as a bedtime story, though, as every time I find myself perusing it some invisible person starts chopping onions right under my eyes. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Accident](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Mr.Accident](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Accident)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-fictional-book-you-remember-reading-loving-on-your-own-what-do-you-think-of-it-now/649413/84 "2013-02-10T22:52:01Z")
This is an easy one for me, as the book in question had a profound effect on my life. It was September of 91, a month into my fifth grade year of school. I was miserable, as my teacher was very strict about what we could do in our free time. We were only allowed to read, if we weren’t working on assignments. No writing, no drawing, no playing with toys, no talking. At this time in my life I hated reading with a passion; so much so that when I started 5th grade, I had a reading level of a 3rd grader. One day I was hanging out in my cousins bedroom, when a book on her desk caught my eye. A beautiful cheerleader in a white and maroon outfit stood facing forward, holding white pom poems together at her waist. In the center of the pom poms was a splotch of deep red; centered in the splotch of red was a skull. I asked my cousin could I borrow it, and was allowed to. I spent the next week struggling with this book, and by the end my life was changed. I bought and borrowed every book I could find by the author, and quickly branched out from horror, to SciFi, mystery, fantasy, nonfiction, and adventure. By the end of 5th grade I was never without a book. I finished 5th grade with the reading level of a college freshman, a new outlook on life, and a hobby I would still have 22 years later. It all started with The First Evil by R.L. Stine. Had it not been for this book, I would have in all likely hood ended up as a stereotypical ex-jock making derisive comments about bibliophiles. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-fictional-book-you-remember-reading-loving-on-your-own-what-do-you-think-of-it-now/649413/85 "2013-02-10T23:01:31Z")
> [@](#): > > I think it holds up marvelously, though the rest of the Time Quintet is not nearly as good. Quintet? I generally think of _A Wrinkle in Time_, _A Wind in the Door_, and _A Swiftly Tilting Planet_ as a trilogy, with _Many Waters_ as a sort of companion piece. What are you considering the fifth book? There was another one she wrote ages later, starring (I think) Meg’s daughter, but that was such a big departure from the others (and incidentally also, so bad) that I wouldn’t consider it connected at all. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2013, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-fictional-book-you-remember-reading-loving-on-your-own-what-do-you-think-of-it-now/649413/86 "2013-02-10T23:59:37Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Quintet? I generally think of _A Wrinkle in Time_, _A Wind in the Door_, and _A Swiftly Tilting Planet_ as a trilogy, with _Many Waters_ as a sort of companion piece. What are you considering the fifth book? There was another one she wrote ages later, starring (I think) Meg’s daughter, but that was such a big departure from the others (and incidentally also, so bad) that I wouldn’t consider it connected at all. “Quintet” was a typo. I hadn’t even heard of a book starring Meg’s daughter, and I refuse to look it up. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-first-fictional-book-you-remember-reading-loving-on-your-own-what-do-you-think-of-it-now/649413.md?page=4)