They Gave Me That Book For A Reason: How did parents/teachers try to shape your character through childhood reading?

Cafe Society
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(Wasn’t sure whether this belonged better in Cafe Society or someplace like MPSIMS, Mods feel free to move as appropriate.)

Looking back on your childhood, what do you notice about the ways your parents and/or teachers were evidently trying to instill/“indoctrinate” certain values or principles based on their choice of your reading material?

In my 1960s/70s childhood, books were regularly given as birthday presents and borrowed from libraries, but there were also large numbers of them that just appeared at random in the kids’ bookcases with no advance notice or explanation. (This was so routine that I can’t remember ever even thinking it peculiar that a shelf sometimes contained a book I’d never seen before, nor was it ever discussed in the family. Bookcases just naturally sprouted books sometimes, that was what they were for.)

It’s occurred to me that although my middle-aged parents were in no way “hippies” or radicals, they must have been pretty committed to ensuring that I saw a lot of what would now be called “diverse representation and inclusion”.

Besides the sort of juvenile literature that might be considered fairly standard for the personal cultural heritage of my mom (A.A. Milne, Beatrix Potter, E. Nesbit, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Little House books, Robert McCloskey) and my dad (Maurice Sendak, Sydney Taylor’s All-of-A-Kind Family books about early 20th-century Jewish kids on the Lower East Side, E.L. Konigsburg), there appeared in the bookcases the Jesse Jackson (no, not that Jesse Jackson) “Charley Moss” books about a Black American teenager, Striped Ice Cream, …And Now Miguel, Julie of the Wolves, The Wheel on the School, Plain Girl, and scads of other books about kids in different cultures and social groups.

Not just fiction but folklore: Claymore and Kilt, Thistle and Thyme, Tales of Robin Hood, D’Aulaire’s Greek Myths, but also The Long Grass Whispers, Where the Leopard Passes, and, what was that southeast Asian folktales collection? The one with the story about the beggar whom a fried-fish vendor took to court to get payment for enjoying the smell of his fish as he ate his rice, and was instructed to pay for the smell of the fish with the shadow of a coin?

Anyway, if the purpose of those random bookshelf growths was to turn me into a raving woke multiculturalist diversity advocate, it succeeded. :smile: Thanks, Mom and Dad!

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I do have fond memories of the randomness of the art and media. I didn’t have cable, and the internet didn’t come along until the end of what I’d consider my adolescence, so I too had the hodge podge of books at my disposal. I’ve never been a reader, so I can’t imagine how bored I must have been to go over to that bookshelf and pull some random book down.

I remember reading Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman and being amazed at the clarity of his writing. I read a book about the Shroud of Turin that had the opposite affect on my already skeptical brain than I’m sure the author intended. For that matter I read as much of the KJV bible as I could handle out of a combined sense of guilt and boredom.

My parents subscribed to Newsweek, which went a long way towards keeping me informed during the Clinton years, and Nat Geo, which gave me an appreciation for environmentalism. But any influence the stuff around the house had on me pushed me in the opposite direction from my parents, so go figure.

Required reading in school also had a big affect on me, with Cat’s Cradle and Catch-22 being the most memorable. But I’m sure both of those were on optional reading lists, so I’m not sure how intentional those would have been on the part of any teachers.

I’ve tried not to recreate my own childhood with my kids and let them have their own experience. They have a lot more options for entertainment, and while we don’t shy away from talking politics, they’ve clearly became woke from Tik Tok before we even had a change to get to them. Part of me is sad that they won’t get the experience of a movie coming on at 2pm on a Saturday and having no idea what they’re about to watch, or pulling a book down from the shelf and having no idea what it’s going to be about. But that was my childhood, not theirs.

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Not sure what the reason woulda been, and not sure which teacher it was. But somewhere in (I’m guessing) 7th or 8th grade a teacher gave me a paperback copy of The Hobbit. Kinda sad I can’t even remember which teacher it was, because it gave me more joy than just about any gift I’ve ever been given.

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Honestly, I don’t really know why people bother trying to peddle drugs to children when just giving them books provides the same delightful power rush of making a life-altering impact, without any of the associated guilt.

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The school Librarian in 6th grade recommended The Hobbit and Rocket Ship Galileo by Heinlein. I went from below grade reading to 12th grade reading by part way through 7th grade. So yes, pretty life changing.

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Excellent point.

My Dad had a Masters and was a teacher after the war for a while, so taught me to read at an early age. I remember a series about woodland animals, and another by Altsheler:Joseph Alexander Altsheler - Wikipedia

Then he turned me on to Sci-Fi and Nero Wolfe a bit later. We visited the library every two weeks or so.

What a great Librarian.

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My dad worked swing shift for most of my childhood, and with four kids, my mom was too busy to do much book-recommending, but she did set the example of being a reader. All of us got library cards as soon as we could (we had to be able to print our names), and we went to the library every weekend. It seemed a long walk to me at the time, but was probably only about a mile, and I never didn’t want to go. I always wanted more books! As soon as I was earning my own money, I was buying books all the time, too. I’ve probably given away two or three times as many books as I currently own.

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Not really. They just instilled a love of reading and turned me loose without comment or direction. I didn’t have a “magic bookcase” like Kimstu’s.

This being before 1960 there was, shall we say, a dearth of diversity in the school supplied materials.

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Parents and teachers? No. My parents are not readers and my teachers were largely indifferent to my existence.

My grandfather however did supply me with a great deal of reading material, and had a “magic library” that included much of Carl Sagan’s work as well as books on astronomy and other space topics. That most certainly shaped my personality as an adult. I’m not sure if it was “for a reason” or simply a side effect of his own personal interest in the subjects, but it certainly had an effect either way.

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The only thing my parents bought especially for me were books about science and children’s encyclopedias. All my books for “casual reading” as a kid were hand me down’s from my older sisters, who were in middle/high school by the time I started first grade.

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Even before I could really read, the desk/bookcase combo in my bedroom was filled with my mom’s Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden books. I also had access to a couple of kid-friendly encyclopedia sets (one was very simplified, the other was science-focused). The children’s books I learned to read on were fairly generic, but mom and dad made sure I had access to a variety of things as I got older; in particular, I remember an illustrated set of biographies of a fairly diverse group of famous people. I also remember my mom carefully going over my Scholastic book fair orders – not to remove any of my selections, but to make sure I hadn’t missed anything she thought looked good. :slight_smile: I guess there wasn’t one book that was given to me by any one person…the whole point was to just read something. That’s something I still do to this day; heck, I keep a small Kindle library on my phone in the event I’m ever stuck somewhere in need of good reading material.

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My great aunt on the other side of Canada was an author and would often send us books from her publisher, many of them remainders she got for nothing (she was not a very prosperous author). More than the subject matter, it was the sheer number and diversity that were inspiring. A couple of favourites: Mr Midshipman Hornblower and The Ship that Flew.Grandparents sent history books. Teachers assigned Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm, part of the prescribed curriculum and obviously aimed at stifling rebellion!

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I usually chose my own books when I was looking for fiction to read. When I was in my teens, I asked to read Portnoy’s Complaint and they were ok with it (I realize now I didn’t really understand what was going on).

My grandmother paid for a subscription to All About Books (science) and Landmark Books (history), which were big interests of mine, but there was no reason other than I was interested in science and history.

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I don’t think my parents etc. ever tried to shape my reading. If I was reading, they were happy. It might be the daily newspaper, or comic books, or drugstore paperbacks (mostly mysteries or westerns); but if I was reading, they had no problem. Both of my parents were avid readers, and I had learned to read at a very young age, so they enjoyed seeing me enjoying something they liked too.

My elementary school library had a great selection of books, but the school librarian would often steer you towards something she thought more age and ability appropriate. I must have been about 9 years old, and wanted to borrow John Howard Griffin’s Black Like Me (which, for some reason, the elementary school library had). No, said the librarian, and laid a copy of The Enormous Egg, by Oliver Butterworth, in my hands. Same thing for Jack London’s The Call of the Wild–I was instead given an Encyclopedia Brown mystery. Both, among others, were enjoyable, but …

Meh. I had a public library card, and I knew how to use it. Moreover, the public librarians didn’t care what I wanted to borrow, and neither did my parents.

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My sister started buying those books for me when I was eight. She also bought a couple sets of Time-Life books (Science Library and Great Ages of Man) and several books from the BoMC , and I was encouraged to read anytime and almost anything I wanted. This was both good and bad – it instilled a great love of history (especially military history), but with all those books to be read and no household chores that I was required to do, I turned into the couch potato I am today. :smiley:

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I was a curious kid who was always asking questions about how the world worked. So my mother got me More Tell Me Why, a children’s encyclopedia. I skipped many of the history questions but I read everything in there are about science and space and animals. It didn’t stop me from asking questions about how the world worked but I slowed down at least a little while I was reading. Eventually, she got me more volumes from the same series.

My parents gave us an allowance from a young age and we knew never to ask for things outside of Christmas and birthdays that we could save up for. But books were the exception. If we wanted a book on any topic they would always take us to the library or the bookstore as requested.

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My teachers seemed to push the standard stuff (Twain, Dreiser, Salinger) along with more tame stuff in grade school, but discouraged anything else. I read voraciously and mostly got into trouble for reading on my own. I’d usually finish the assignment and try to read my own choices, often to be scolded or even punished for it. I got paddled in 2nd grade because I had a copy of Ark of Venus* hidden inside my textbook (I’d already finished the reading assignment).

My mom pushed pop-psychology books at home (I’m OK, You’re OK, etc.). My dad believed the only acceptable subject for film or literature was war and the military. I was uninterested in either subject, so they were disappointed a lot. Maybe they were trying to shape me somehow, but it was wasted effort.

My preferences have always been scifi, with a bit of fantasy thrown in. I read the entire LOTR series in 7th grade (at home), it wasn’t part of any school assignment. I still read a dozen or so books a year, but only for entertainment. Occasionally I’ll revisit the classics, but mostly hunting for new authors.

*IIRC, it was about Venus and giant snakes – I think that was the title.

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My parents were not avid readers when I was young, altho my dad had a book case filled with thick, stodgy hard back books on Russian and European WWII history that never left the shelf, and only got dusted occasionally.

I was a terrible reader back then: it was a chore to be avoided, and only done when forced (for a school assignment). I am not sure if my resistance blunted their efforts to influence me thru books, or they just didn’t care. However, if we were visiting relatives or friends with an encyclopedia set, I would descend upon it and stay busy and out of their hair for hours. Perhaps my love of nature and history is influenced by them leaving me to my own devices. We never got a set for ourselves.

I did not start reading for pleasure until my mid-20s, long after leaving home and far from parental/teacher influences.

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Same here. We had lots of books in the house and they were indulgent re: requests.

A couple exceptions were the two years I was home schooled, where I was encouraged to read a few historical fiction books that I didn’t like. And a book on puberty after I rejected attempts to discuss the topic.

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My mom was a big reader and I took after her. I loved books, still do. But other than the Golden Books my mom and others would have given me before I could read, I picked out my own books. I remember being so disappointed when I went to the school library for the first time and the rule was we could only pick out one book! I wanted more. We didn’t live within walking distance of a public library and my mom didn’t drive at the time, but we took full advantage of the bookmobile. I could pick out as many books as I wanted there. Another thing that I loved was when the teacher would hand out the Scholastic Book “catalogs”. My mom would let me buy as many books as I wanted. It was like Christmas when they arrived when my teacher would hand me that stack of brand new paperback books. I was in heaven.