21st Century Literature discussion
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Which Books Do You Remember Reading First? (2/9/20)
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Marc
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Feb 10, 2020 04:39AM
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There is a lot I've forgotten but some of the first ones that stuck with me:- a realist series of very short books in which kids did mundane activities with family members, with large colourful pictures with bold black outlines and one or two sentences underneath. For some reason a page always stayed me vividly from a book about a British Caribbean family where the mum had gone back to see an ill elderly relative and the dad was looking after their son at home. There was a scene in a supermarket with a trolley and he is saying to the boy "Michael, you can help push".
(Now it sounds like one of those books designed to have a social message but as a kid it was just itself. Also shows there were already books like that around in the late 70s to early 80s. It is not just a new thing.)
- vague memories of a set of very short reading books which had colour coded spines. The ones I remember most clearly had green spines. They seem to have been One Two Three and Away but I've never seen any pictures of the editions I remember, the images online always seem to be older or newer.
- Lots of Ladybird books, many of which I have shelved on here. A friend of the same age, whom I got to know as an adult, got lots of history ones which I rather envy, but I simply never saw them. (Though I was being given history books meant for c. 10 year olds when I was 5 or 6 so maybe the Ladybird ones were just judged to be at a lower level than I was reading.) Mostly fairy tales - including Red Riding Hood with a wolf walking on its hind legs beside her - fairy-tale adjacent things like Aesop and things like British Wild Animals (with some deer on the front) and Garden Birds (bullfinches and possibly chaffinches on the cover).
- More advanced school reading books whose publisher/series name would surely be familiar if I heard it, but I forgot it long ago. They had thick paperback covers with those very tiny embossed squares that made a noise if you scratched them, and were often pretty old battered copies. (Wouldn't be surprised if Hugh remembers these from when they were newer.) I remember being especially proud to get one (I was a reading group on my own at my first school) that seemed at the time as thick as the books adults read, regardless of it being very worn and old. It had what can now only be described as a very stereotyped painted picture of several Chinese men with queues who I think were in a boat, possibly rowing it. The pages were still over half picture. I had the impression it was the top/last one in its series.
Also had just one Little Black Sambo book. And duplicated Beatrix Potters. I had a few individual old ones and then nagged for a shiny new box set when they reissued them; I was reading more advanced stuff, but already in thrall to the idea of important classics and wanted to read and own the full box set. (It's a good job 1001 Books to Read Before You Grow Up didn't exist then!) I was v much overindulged by being bought stuff as a kid that I would now say no to if I were in my mum's shoes.
Babar is one I pretty much missed as books though I was aware of the characters (maybe read one from the library when much too old for it to understand). Likewise Spot, Where the Wild Things Are and a few other popular picture books always felt like things for little children that had only appeared when I was too old for them, although that was not actually the case, I had just not come across them when I was the right (reading) age, and like most children was very keen to reject "babyish" things as soon as possible.
Oh my. First, Antonomasia, your description of the book with Chinese men on the cover brought back a strong memory to me. Probably not the same as yours, and seems way too racist to still exist, but it's The Five Chinese Brothers.I am old enough to have been raised on the Little Golden Books, and this one was big in my house (fed our independent spirits!) - Mister Dog: The Dog Who Belonged to Himself.
But my favorite by far, that I will never, ever forget, is The Wish-Tree. This is a beautifully illustrated book about dreams and puppies and what it takes to have what you want.
My first books were Dr.Seuss, which I adored - I still have my copy of yertle the turtle. I had the classic little golden books - the pokey little puppy was the one we read the most. I was crazy over two books Pickle Things and Witches 4. They were written by an author called Marc Brown, who later achieved fame with the Arthur books.
I remember some one offs. A book called Sheldon’s lunch which involved snakes and pancakes and socks for supper which was a rags to riches story
I had a book that involved a family going for a rollercoaster ride but end up going through a haunted house but the title escapes me
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Another one that I can't dredge up a name for was a little book set in a rural English village that included a map of the village, probably aimed at under 5s...
Yes, the disapproval of Enid Blyton! This seems to have been very common in middle class families around the 1960s-90s, but I haven't heard of anyone who's now middle aged perpetuating it with their own kids. As a younger child I only had one Noddy book, but when I was a bit older I managed to get the full sets of St Clare's and Mallory Towers despite having read them all from libraries first, and several Famous Five books.
Hugh wrote: "We had a few Dr Seuss ones too, but my parents didn't like them much. They didn't approve of Enid Blyton either.Another one that I can't dredge up a name for was a little book set in a rural Engl..."
Since my childhood was in Canada my parents were sort of lukewarm towards Enid Blyton BUT when we'd go to Malta for summer holidays, Enid Blyton and Ladybird books were the only children's books stores would sell. So for 6 weeks I would live on a diet of Enid Blyton.
I never liked the mysteries I was more into the Amelia Jane/Mr. Pink Whistle etc but then I had to read the mysteries as I read most of her fantasy books
By week 5 I would get sick of her, the books are formulaic so it was easy to figure them out.
Antonomasia wrote: "Yes, the disapproval of Enid Blyton! This seems to have been very common in middle class families around the 1960s-90s, but I haven't heard of anyone who's now middle aged perpetuating it with thei..."As a middle school librarian (ages 7 - 11) I can say that Enid Blyton has fallen out of favor with children, however I do keep the Blyton books because I do get a couple of kids who will check out the famous 5, read about four and then move on.
In order to promote reading I focus on an author for three weeks and it helps get the books of the shelves ( my students read only Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Captain Underpants and Dog Man) but I stopped Enid Blyton month cause I could never spark the kid's interest in her.
Kathleen wrote: "Oh my. First, Antonomasia, your description of the book with Chinese men on the cover brought back a strong memory to me. Probably not the same as yours, and seems way too racist to still exist, bu..."Yes, Little Golden Books were 80% of my starting books. Three Little Kittens, The Poky Little Puppy, Tootle. I am the youngest of 4 with a brother 14 years older, so nothing was purchased for me, as you might imagine. All were "borrowed" (they weren't handed down, either. I had to take care of them for their rightful owners. harrrumph).
Other than those, big favorites were Pookie by Ivy L. Wallace (apparently, a series, but I only had and read the original), Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a Bear, The Little Engine That Could, Grimm's and Anderson's fairy tales, the originally published novels of Pinocchio and Bambi... and then I was off to the races at the library, even then seeking out chapter books that were 20+ years old and shelved, and not what was being promoted on display tables.
My parents both grew up in poverty and I had exactly one book, which was The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. I loved it! It took me many years to discover it was a sequel and I never liked the first book as well.Then came the "Scholastic Book Club" program in elementary school, omg, does anyone else remember the badly-printed 4-page catalog that came out every quarter, where you could order books at very low cost, and then they'd come a few weeks later, delivered to your classroom? I'd agonize over how to spend my money, budgeting and making choices. That program made me a reader. And probably taught me addition too.
I remember early on my mother reading to me from Best Loved Nursery Rhymes and Songs. I still have the same book over 40 years later, complete with little ladybug stickers I apparently thought to stick all over the inside cover at some point.
I also remember looking at a lot of Richard Scarry books such as Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever among others. It's the one book that I later always purchased and gave as a gift as my friends and family had kids of their own.
And my most beloved early reading memory was when my mother signed me up for the Weekly Reader book subscription to the Sweet Pickles series. I would received a book in the mail every week. I don't remember how many books I ended up with, but they were a favorite. The inside cover of each book had illustrations of each of the 26 animal characters (one for each letter of the alphabet), and the back inside cover had an illustration of the map of the town and where each character lived. I would sit there and study that map for ages. Each book featured one character. Sadly, I don't know what happened to my collection. A dozen years ago, I could not find the books in print any longer once my first kid came along and I remembered these books, but I was able to find used copies of a few of the books. So we have around eight of them now, and my son's favorite for me to read to him was Goose Goofs Off.
Lark wrote: "Then came the "Scholastic Book Club" program in elementary school, omg, does anyone else remember the badly-printed 4-page catalog that came out every quarter, where you could order books at very low cost, and then they'd come a few weeks later, delivered to your classroom?"Yes! And the day when everyone noticed that the box of books had been delivered to the classroom was so exciting, but of course the teacher would wait until the very end of the day to hand out the books!
My kids still come home with the order forms for the same program, but it's not quite as fun because they come home with several newsletters stapled together, and the teacher usually has you order online where there are even more books to choose from. Still, it's exciting for them to receive the book order in class, so I always let them choose a couple of books to order.
Lark wrote: "My parents both grew up in poverty and I had exactly one book, which was The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. I loved it! It took me many years to discover it was a sequel and I never liked..."I was a bullied child and one highlight of school was when the box of books would arrive. My parents would always let me buy a couple of books (one for me and one for my sister) so I'd enjoy reading them during our DEAR (drop everything and Read) slot.
The other highlight was the Scholastic Book Fair - three days of heaven!!! We were only able to choose one book and it was torture! so I would stay after school and try sneak reads.
I remember in the summer of 1989 my parents bought the summer reading box - 12 books and all were great. Those books still exist today and are in terrible condition as they were passed on to my sisters, who, like me, read them countless of times.
This isn’t early early reading but maybe someone can help me.I vividly remember a book from my childhood about a group of children that includes loads of science that they used to thwart baddies etc. (e.g. sugar in petrol tank). There was a really funny bit where someone tried to persuade people that a car hadn’t moved because the flat looking but of the tyre was still at the bottom.
Try as I might, I cannot remember the title of the book. I think there was an egg involved.
It’s about 50 years ago now, so faint hope, but...
If there aren't any answers on here it might be worth trying the What's the Name of that Book? group. Though inevitably a lot of the membership is in the US, it's a big group and they do find answers for quite a lot of queries. A childhood favourite I've never been able to track down, despite asking in there, and asking friends of the same age who read a lot of the books I did, was a large glossy, very detailed picture book about sandy-coloured creatures that looked quite like Moomins but weren't Moomins. (I only learned of Moomins later and was always a bit disappointed by them compared with these other creatures.) In retrospect it probably had a kind of 1970s hippie feel: there was a lot of nature in it, large gatherings in panoramic scenes, and a sort of fantasy/semi-religious quest arc. There was a leader/prophet among the creatures, named Rimini, who became more important as the story wore on; he was associated with the sun and was one of the last pictures in the book, wearing robes.
I'd guess that it didn't sell very well and that'll be why no-one else knows it.
Lark wrote: "Then came the "Scholastic Book Club" program in elementary school, omg, does anyone else remember the badly-printed 4-page catalog that came out every quarter, where you could order books at very low cost, and then they'd come a few weeks later, delivered to your classroom? ..."My heart starts racing all these years later, just thinking of that four page catalog. I don't remember a book fair, but nothing was as much fun as trying to decide which book to order on that super-thin, badly-printed order form!
Lark wrote: "My parents both grew up in poverty and I had exactly one book, which was The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. I loved it! It took me many years to discover it was a sequel and I never liked..."The scholastic catalog was my original TBR. I rarely was permitted to get anything, but I circled and starred and dreamt away.
Lark wrote: "Then came the "Scholastic Book Club" program in elementary school, omg, does anyone else remember the badly-printed 4-page catalog that came out every quarter, where you could order books at very low cost, and then they'd come a few weeks later, delivered to your classroom?..."I sure do remember ordering books from Scholastic, but I don't remember any of the individual books. But I do vividly remember the day in about 2nd grade when I got permission to start browsing the 'big kids' books at the back of the school library. I also remember that Johnny Tremain was my first 'big' chapter book and it was a revelation! I had no idea that historical novels existed.
There were kids books, but the first "real" book I read was Kon-Tiki. I found it in the elementary school library. It was a revelation - the reality of it, after the children's level plotting of my previous favorites.
Thanks for the tip on the book naming group - I haven’t come across that group before and it might be very useful.
Carol wrote: "The scholastic catalog .... I rarely was permitted to get anything, ....I can identify! I would have forgotten about it if not reminded here. My mother lived through the Depression on the Plains -- bringing home her meager earnings as a schoolteacher to help her younger siblings in a large farm family. I remember few books at home, although we did always have a newspaper (and magazines) and I probably learned to read from the comics: Blondie, Dick Tracy (and his wrist watch), Little Orphan Annie, Steve Canyon, Lil Abner (whose social commentary I never understood until much older), .... But from somewhere came the nursery rhymes of Mother Goose, as well as tales like Chicken Little, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, Cinderella, The Ugly Duckling, and, eventually, Rumpelstiltskin, although I have no recollection of the books containing them. Mother did obtain the Sunday school Bible story books from "town church" (I can still envision their format) and they were my introduction to its stories from perspectives far different from those of the ministers and theologians who continue to touch my life.
I do remember the Golden books, Nancy Drew, the Bobbsey Twins, Zane Grey, -- many of these hand-me-downs from aunts, uncles, and other family members. I do know that once I was in school and taking standardized tests, I was short on knowledge of classics like Alice in Wonderland, although our grade school teacher did read aloud several days each week from books like Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer (but not Huck Finn, so far as I recall). (We had multiple grades in our rural classroom.) The county provided a rotating library of books, probably every other month; I was the irritating classmate who took pride in being the first to read all ten or fifteen of them, long before the next set was due. Our school did have a library; the building had once included a high school classroom. Some twenty plus years later, when I was interviewing in the Cunard Building in lower Manhattan, my mind could recreate and match the pictures in one of those books.
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My parents were relatively frugal, but always broke out the wallet when it came time for those book orders!
The first book I remember owning was Green Eggs and Ham. It's still my favorite Dr. Seuss book. The first book I remember reading was Now We are Six. I was six at the time and very taken with it. I read tons of Enid Blyton because we were in East Africa in late elementary school - my brother had the Noddy books, but I mostly read the Secret Seven, the Famous Five and the various boarding school series. The book though that made the biggest impression on me was A Wrinkle in Time. I was visiting my cousin and the teacher read aloud the chapter where Meg is sparring with It. Then we went off to Africa and I had no idea what the book was. Imagine my thrill when that Christmas, my aunt sent me a copy of the book. I recognized the cover immediately.
Another book I remember getting vividly was The Lord of the Rings. My mother had gone back to the States for her grandmother's funeral and came back with a copy, saying that my cousin had pronounced it "groovy". I read it for the first time at 11, and every year for the next 20 years.
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Later on I was obsessed with Betsy byars , Gordon korman (he’s a Canadian author who was a bit of a prodigy as he wrote his first book when he was 15 years old as part of a high school project) and Roald Dahl.
Yesterday I found myself thinking about book designs from this middle childhood period and how designs that seemed so fashionably new in the 80s would look so dated now. Unfortunately I don't seem to have remembered the book titles correctly so I can't show you the examples. (I thought one was called Pongo the Gorilla.) There was one series of what Americans call chapter books which had block primary colour backgrounds and all over the rest of the cover, and a neat realistic picture of a character or location right in the middle.
Since a number of us are in older childhood territory, I have to mention Arthur Ransome, who was my favourite writer when I was 8 or 9. I read a lot of fiction then, but almost none as a teenager. Who else remembers Professor Branestawm..
Yes, always lots of Professor Branestawm in libraries, both school and public. With the books later in the series, usually no-one else had borrowed them for several years. (Wouldn't had survived in a lot of libraries these days.)
Swallows and Amazons reminds me of how I had a very unemotional approach to most things I read at that age. I don't actually know whether or not I liked the books or why, just that I didn't actively dislike them - but I was aware of them as famous books it was good to know about, and got copies of the full series and read all of them at least twice.
I have always been badly prone to seasickness, and never liked swimming either, but that didn't seem to have any connection to the books for me at that age. Whereas now I don't read a lot of books about sailing (e.g. although some friends like and recommend Patrick O'Brien) as they seem unappealing because of that.
Earlier, *loved* Richard Scarry. Some of his illustrations and characters are still the first image that comes to mind for certain names, places or animals.
21st Century Literature
Books mentioned in this topic
The Fire Cat (other topics)The High King (other topics)
Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever! (other topics)
Alice in Wonderland (other topics)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Richard Scarry (other topics)Ivy L. Wallace (other topics)
