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What Was "THE BOOK" That Made You A Reader?
I loved Dawson's Creek too!My first ever book to lead all books was the classic children's novel The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, which I read as a child and am now reading to my daughter. But I think I also felt addicted to The Faraway Tree trilogy by Enid Blyton.
I've been a reader since. My first adult WOW moment was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and remains a favourite.
I love the power a book has!
Awesome. Secret Garden was a great story; so sad!
I had lots of lovely children's books that are probably out of print now but I do remember being fascinated by the Readers Digest books that my grandmother had. And then for some reason starting to read mysteries. Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle did it for me -- locking me in a lifelong love affair.I read Wurthering Heights fairly young but not too many other 'classics.' And for a period of time I couldn't get my hands on enough true crime.
My grandma had entire shelves stacked with those hardback Readers Digest volumes, probably well over a hundred! I can still picture them with each title in a different embossed color on the spine. I never read them, but I miss the sight of them :)
I remember loving Conan Doyle in my teens. And P D James.
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As a growing tween, I switched from books like Redwall and Sweet Valley High to The Death Gate Cycle and Stephen King.
I think Stephen King's IT was the book that moved me into hard-core author-obsessive reading. Before him, I was reading as a pastime. But once I got a taste of true grown-up literature, I was actually HUNGRY for it.
As I kid, I spent tons of time in the library reading books over the summer. It stopped until I graduated college because of all the literary reading I had to do in school. I also said it drained the pure enjoyment out of it for me. As an adult I'd read a lot of books before this, but it was Stephen King's Dark Tower series that really got me back into it.
A few years later I read and loved Anna Karenina, War & Peace, lots of Jane Austen, and my favorite book (which I've read three times) - The Count of Monte Cristo.
As soon as I learned to read I was hooked. In first grade, we were rewarded for learning new words by being allowed to check out a library book. I took home an illustrated, abridged copy of The Black Stallion by Walter Farley, and I was lost in love. Books transport me. I read all of Farley's horse stories, all of Marguerite Henry's stories, and all of Terhune's collie stories. I still love a good animal story, tho my tastes have widened over the years.
I'd have to say that Tom Swift, Encylopedia Brown and the Hardy Boys books got me started...and then J.R.R. Tolkien set the hook *HARD* when I was introduced to Middle Earth in the third grade. For better or worse, fantasy didn't stick as a genre (although I'll read Tolkien anytime even now), but the world-building aspects of his work are what really impressed me and it's something that I look for in sci-fi work these days.
There was no one book for me, I was always a reader. However, I remember that for my middle daughter it was a nonfiction easy reader (she was learning something real, ironic because she mostly reads fiction).
Lori wrote: "I've always been a reader. My mom used to take me to the library as a kid and I'd check out as many books as they'd let me. As a growing tween, I switched from books like Redwall and Sweet Valley..."
Oh, Sweet Valley High. Those and the Girl Talk series were my bread and butter in middle school :)
Quoleena wrote: "As I kid, I spent tons of time in the library reading books over the summer. It stopped until I graduated college because of all the literary reading I had to do in school. I also said it drained t..."As a teacher, it's so sad to me that required reading is counter-productive to creative lovers of reading. Sigh. Sometimes it comes down to choosing the least sucky book from the "approved" list. I was a lot like you and sought out my own reading.
Jim wrote: "I'd have to say that Tom Swift, Encylopedia Brown and the Hardy Boys books got me started...and then J.R.R. Tolkien set the hook *HARD* when I was introduced to Middle Earth in the third grade. For..."Tolkien is like fantasy with literary substance. As a non-fantasy fan but fellow reader of Tolkien, I totally get that.
Anne of Green Gables was definitely the one book that made me a reader. I still remember my mom reading it to me when I was 6 or 7. It also helped that when we brought the Scholastic flyer home from school my mom always ordered books for my brother and I.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson was it for me.
Gosh .. I could always read, and was always a voracious reader. But I do remember when I was in kindergarten reading and loving "B" Is for Betsy by Carolyn Haywood ... a couple of years later I was into Nancy Drew and Marguerite Henry
Harry Potter. Sorry, was that not aloud?
Charlie wrote: "Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. My dad gave it to me to read when I was a Jr. in high school."Oh my... I read Atlas Shrugged. I enjoyed the first half but felt that Ayn assumed I was too dumb to understand what happened, which is why she explained it to me in the second half.
Dylan wrote: "Charlie wrote: "Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. My dad gave it to me to read when I was a Jr. in high school."Oh my... I read Atlas Shrugged. I enjoyed the first half but felt..."
Good point; I thought she felt most people were done and that book turned my off Ayn Rand (it was my third book by her; I read two shorter ones first).
Karin wrote: "Dylan wrote: "Charlie wrote: "Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. My dad gave it to me to read when I was a Jr. in high school."Oh my... I read Atlas Shrugged. I enjoyed the first..."
I like a few of her essays but I'm not the biggest fan of objectivism, generally speaking. Mind you, I did appreciate having a life-long question answered: Who is John Galt? :)
I feel like I was born a book lover from the little golden books my parents read to me.The Bobbsey twins Nancy Drew books &My first reading of Little women hooked from then on,
It was Fountainhead by Ayn Rand and Oliver Twist by Dickens.
there were lot of books but I think it was way back, I started off with Enid Blyton's books and they really really inspired me as a reader!!!
Wow, a lot of Ayn Rand fans out there. I've never read her work but maybe I should :)
for me that would have to be Flowers in the Attic. after I read that book I read the rest of that series and then continued to read only EVERY V. C. Andrews book ever written before I would touch any other book.
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That book is a thorn in my side! I've tried to read it on three separate occasions in my life and have wall-chucked it all three times! Ayn is infuriating. I feel like she is talking down to me the whole time. I don't think I ever got further than page 70...
Great Question. My Dad really solidified my love for books, but once I was an independent reader it was a few authors who really locked me in, and I was hooked on many series as a kid.Bobbsey Twins from my aunt (hand-me-down 1st editions)
Babysitter's Club
Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High
Nancy Drew (the 80-90s editions)
The authors who really sucked me in were Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume (grade school) and then Stephen King and Christopher Pike (middle-high school). That sort of locked me into the mystery/suspense/horror genre for about 15 years. I've branched out to popular fiction, but those are my go-tos.
But three books that really stuck with me from my childhood are:
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (I have since read this with my son!)
A Begonia for Miss Applebaum
Just as Long as We're Together
Julianne wrote: "Great Question. My Dad really solidified my love for books, but once I was an independent reader it was a few authors who really locked me in, and I was hooked on many series as a kid.Bobbsey Twi..."
I can remember reading Carrie for the first time in high school. I had to take a sick day and had a high fever. I sat in bed and didn't put it down until it was done. I felt like the little boy in Princess Bride: completely transfixed and it totally took my mind off of how lousy I felt :)
Julianne wrote: "Great Question. My Dad really solidified my love for books, but once I was an independent reader it was a few authors who really locked me in, and I was hooked on many series as a kid.Bobbsey Twi..."
I loved the Babysitter's Club and Sweet Valley Twins/Sweet Valley High. I read them all in 5th & 6th grade. I think those were my favorites at that time.
I, too, fell out of love with books because of all the required reading in my later years of schools. The Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers is what sparked my passion for reading again. And after that I gobbled up Harry Potter, one of my favorite series! You're not alone Isaurathewriter :)
Dylan wrote: "Karin wrote: "Dylan wrote: "Charlie wrote: "Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. My dad gave it to me to read when I was a Jr. in high school."Oh my... I read Atlas Shrugged. I enj..."
A character in Atlas Shrugged. I'm not a fan of objectivism, either, but in the first two novels I read by her, that wasn't the point, whereas Atlas Shrugged was a novel all about that. It turned me off her books forever.
Tabitha wrote: "Julianne wrote: "Great Question. My Dad really solidified my love for books, but once I was an independent reader it was a few authors who really locked me in, and I was hooked on many series as a ..."Same thing with me, in middle school, and The Eye of the Dragon. My first Stephen King and I read on a sick day. I remember feeling terrible in the morning but not so bad in the afternoon.
I wish I could do that again!
I always read. From picture books, to primary readers to early readers, but I think what really got me hooked were the semi-serials written for young readers. Like The Borrowers, Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective, The Great Brain and then eventually Nancy Drew: #1-64, and The Case of the Velvet Claws and all the other Perry Mason books. Reading a series of books where I could care about the characters past the last page was what made me a voracious reader.
Julianne wrote: "Same thing with me, in middle school, and The Eye of the Dragon. My first Stephen King and I read on a sick day. I remember feeling terrible in the morning but not so bad in the afternoon. I wish I could do that again! ..."It was the most delicious escape. I love falling in to a book like that :)
I wish I could remember some of the children's books that I read that started my obsession with reading but by high school I was reading practically anything. But I remember I read everything I could get my hands on about Elizabeth I - fact or fiction. And then my romantic side got hooked on Daphne du Maurier - Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, The Scapegoat (not so romantic, actually). And then there was Jane Eyre ---
My mother took me to the public library when I was in first grade and I got my first library card-I still have it somewhere. I was fortunate that my parents read to me. I bought Scholastic books whenever I could afford them. It was SO hard trying to decide which ones to buy. I wish I still had the books. One of my all-time favorites was The Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler Warner. I really liked the thought that children could take care of themselves! My sister is also a reader.
Jackie wrote: "My mother took me to the public library when I was in first grade and I got my first library card-I still have it somewhere. I was fortunate that my parents read to me. I bought Scholastic books wh..."My parents were huge readers, too. And they read to us. But we had no library to speak of in my home area, so we read what they bought, what we could get at school, etc. When my dad did sabbaticals in a larger city, we loved the library.
Tyrannosaur Canyon. I was visiting my grandmother, who lives in a small town in Pennsylvania, which has a few local hotspots: the VA, Sheetz gas station, the dollar general, and the library. I picked it up because of the cover and description, and realized that books were actually a fun escape. Next, I read Stephen King's Needful Things and that cemented me as a reader.
Owen wrote: "Tyrannosaur Canyon. I was visiting my grandmother, who lives in a small town in Pennsylvania, which has a few local hotspots: the VA, Sheetz gas station, the dollar general, and the library. I pick..."That's awesome. I grew up in a similar small PA town ( or village as it's so aptly called). Had to laugh at the gas station and dollar general "hot spots"; that sums it up!
Charlie and the Chocolate FactoryHarriet the Spy
Mrs. Mike
I've been reading since I was 12. Some 1 gave me a book called all that glitter isn't gold. I think that was the name. Can't remember who the author was. Then I started reading Danille steel, Jackie Collins and Sydney Sheldon. Then some1 gave me the coldest winter ever by sister soldier and I have been hooked on black authors ever since. Even though I do plan on picking back up with the 1st three I started out with.
Little House in the Big WoodsThe Sweet Valley Twins series
Winnie the Pooh was my favorite as a kid, and became my own children's favorite, too.
I don't think it was exactly one book that got me hooked. My aunt use to read to me all the time when I was little (remember these times so vividly) and as I got older I started reading Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Judy Blume (along with many others) and then picked up Stephen King when I got into high school. I use to love the book fairs when they came to my school.
I struggled with reading and had to have extra lessons when I was about 7. My Mum then gave me her old, hardback copy of Five on a Treasure Island and that was it, no stopping, even for a family wedding as Mum will remind me now! I went on to read Literature at University and write my own books. I still treasure that book.
Harry potter and the Philosopher's stone
OMG - the boxcar kids! I loved those books - thanks for reminding me.I have loved books - my mother read to me all the time - and I started with Nancy Drew and Judy Bolten. I actually liked Judy better.
Jumped into adult books early and have loved Gone with the Wind, Steinbecks books, and historical novels. Forced myself to read many of the "classics" , Got into Sci-fi in high school and a whole bunch of To Be Read books in my bookcases.
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Books mentioned in this topic
Tiger's Curse (other topics)The Children of Noisy Village (other topics)
Karolcia (other topics)
The Chronicles of Narnia (other topics)
Atlas Shrugged (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Ayn Rand (other topics)Kate DiCamillo (other topics)
Herman Melville (other topics)
Gabriel García Márquez (other topics)
Jules Verne (other topics)
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I got Carrie Phillips at my school's book fair and felt me first true connection with the characters and their conflicts.
One of my favorite TV shows as a teen was Dawson's Creek (showing my age here) and in one episode a class discusses Wuthering Heights so I thought hey, why not read it? After that, reading became my addiction :)
What was your reader-defining book(s)?