What kind of books did you read when you were a kid?

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

BillF's mention of Violet Elizabeth Bott made me think about this while I was out having a cough and drag.

I read mostly schoolboy stories - "Teddy Lester's schooldays"; the Just William books by Richmal Crompton; Enid Blyton's Secret Seven and Famous five books. Then I graduated to "Tom Brown's schooldays"; "Treasure Island"; "20,000 leagues under the sea" and similar stuff. (But I really couldn't get into "Rob Roy", which put me off Scott forever.) Then I read books about explorers and was keen on polar expedition books and books about faraway places.

What I had NO interest in (until I became a father) was books about anthropomorphic animals, or kids with strange powers. So "Wind in the willows", the Beatrix Potter books and the Pooh books, or "Peter Pan" and so on were really off the agenda. I just wanted to read books about ordinary kids.

MG

[connoisseur series500]

I was a big fan of Enid Blyton's book. Then I loved the Happy Hollisters (forgot the author.) When I got to high school, I liked reading Joseph Conrad and Stephen Crane. In college, I simply read everything. I still like reading.

Edited December 2, 2008 by connoisseur series500

[BruceH]

Early on (1st, 2nd, 3rd grade) anything with pictures of rockets, dinosaurs, galaxies, or submarines. Later on I got very hooked on science fiction, strangely enough.

[poetrylover3]

By the 3rd grade I' read the Landmark books series on American History, the childhoods of famous people, and Greek myths, Sherlock Holmes. By the 5th grade I'd graduated to the adult section of the library and was reading the Durants, Voltaire, Mark Twain along with classic mysteries by the likes of Agatha Christie, Erle Stanley Gardner etc. I received my first exposure to Carl JUng's Memories, Dreams, Reflections, and Man & His Symbols. I also naturally devoured Baseball Biographies, the Bronc Burnett series, Tom Swift. I read voraciously and it not only gave me a wide background of knowledge but it kept me sane. I don't have nearly the time to read today but I keep the summertime and Christmas open. My favorite novel is still THe Brothers Karamazov.

Peace,

Blue Trane

[7/4]

This was in the early '70s:

Lord of the Rings, Science Fiction, all that swords and fantasy stuff, Conan, anything about cars, stamps, planes, astronomy, cartoons...then came music and I forgot about all that.

dB

[ejp626]

By 3rd grade, I was reading Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Swift. I had that mostly out of my system by 4th grade or so, when I switched to science fiction (lots and lots of it). I continued reading this through high school, though by about 8th grade I had started to supplement with more serious literature (Mark Twain, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Burton's translation of 1001 Nights, Garcia Marquez, Borges, Shakespeare, some Dickens). I definitely remember identifying with the tragic hero in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons in high school -- yeah, I was one of those mopes. One reason I had access to all this stuff was that I worked at the public library, and we had first crack at the donated books for the semi-annual book sale (yes, we did have to pay for these books), so my home library was huge. The last book I read before heading off to college (at 17 so I was still a kid) was Joyce's Ulysses. Even though I was pretty well read, I had some weird gaps. I don't think I encountered Calvino until college, for instance. Same thing with Rushdie (though until Satanic Verses he wasn't that well known in the US -- a much bigger deal in the UK because of his Booker Prize for Midnight's Children).

[Shawn]

When I was a kid my favorite was the Br'er Rabbit stories by Joel Chandler Harris, which I guess is interesting considering how out of favor those stories had become by the early 70's. Regardless, those are the first ones I really remember and I loved the characters.

After that I read a bunch of those Scholastic books they used to sell in elementary school, anything that looked like a mystery (I also went on a Hardy Boys kick for awhile).

But I had graduated to adult books by the time I was 9, The Hobbit was one of the first I read. Within a couple years I became a huge fan of horror novels and spent most of the early 80's reading anything put out by Stephen King, Peter Straub, Whitley Streiber, etc.

[RDK]

Danny Dunn! But nobody remembers him.

[BruceH]

Danny Dunn! But nobody remembers him.

I remember Danny Dunn and the Smallifying Machine. But that's the only one I ever read.

[connoisseur series500]

My favorite novel is still THe Brothers Karamazov.

One of my favs. as well.

[Larry Kart]

At first author-illustrators: Virginia Lee Burton's "Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel," and "The Little House"; Robert McCloskey's "Make Way for Duckings"; almost everything by Robert Lawson ("Rabbit Hill") but especially his somewhat obscure "The Fabulous Flight," about a boy who after a riding accident begins to grow smaller with age until he's only a few inches tall and makes friends with a talkative pigeon, after which he and the pigeon go off to save the world from a mad scientist who's threatening to blow up the world; William Pene Du Bois' "Twenty-One Balloons," etc. All of these books I've reread as an adult and found to be at least as good as I thought they were back then.

Then a whole lot of semi-"adventure" books: ones about dogs by Jim Kjellgaard "(Big Red"); about young strivers in rural settings by Stephen W. Meader ("Blueberry Hill"), Walter Farley's WWII-set "Larry and the Undersea Raider," about a boy in New England who spots a German submarine raiding party (with my name in the title, I almost thought it had been written for me).

A multi-volume adult-level (i.e. akin to the prose of Time magazine but without Time's quirks of style) history of the U.S. Navy in WWII, "Battle Report," which I read over and over with deep fascination -- much of my early success in school, such as it was, was thanks to the level of general verbal facility that reading this book to pieces gave me.

Beginning in fifth or sixth grade (1953-4), lots of science fiction, which IMO was at an all-time high point then: all the Heinlein juveniles in particular, which also hold up like gangbusters when I've re-read them as an adult.

First adult novel I read (at about age 12 or 13) was Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man," which blew me way. I'm still grateful to the wise librarian who hesitated at first about letting me check it out (adult books were for adults then, by and large), then let me go ahead. I certainly got a fair amount of the racial theme but also found much of the book very funny in a kind of crazed-slapstick manner (e.g. the scene in the paint factory). In college, Ellison was a resident-scholar (or some such) for a while and lived at our dorm. One night he was holding forth (actually, more or less being forced to hold forth) amid much solemn-pious liberal handwringing from us about "Invisible Man," when I mentioned how funny much of the book seemed to me back then. Ellison was delighted, said that he meant those passages to be crazed-funny first, in addition to whatever else they were. First, "adult" adult novel probably was Norman Mailer's "The Deer Park" which was strange, somewhat confusing, and enlightening. First "adult" semi-trashy novels were Leon Uris's "Battle Cry" and Harry Grey's "The Hoods," which contained a horrifically violent and eye-opening rape scene. Also, in a similar vein, there was "A Stone for Danny Fisher," a surprisingly good early semi-autobiographical novel by Harold Robbins about growing up poor in a rough New York City neighborhood. Also, all the books by humorist S.J. Perelman, who replaced/erased my earlier favorite humorist H. Allen Smith ("Life in a Putty Knife Factory").

Speaking of librarians, in junior-high, "library" was something you got a grade in, based on what books you checked out. One semester in seventh grade I read every Horatio Hornblower book I could find and got an "F" in library because my reading wasn't varied enough. I could have strangled that stupid woman; of course, kids who like to read and are lucky enough to find an author they really like will read every book by that author in a row -- what could be more natural?

[JSngry]

It's funny...I learned how to write at an early age, but I've never learned how to read.

[Joe G]

Jack London was an early favorite, and anything about animals.

[Larry Kart]

About "The Hoods": "This book by HARRY GREY --an ex-hood himself! --will shock you but you must read it. He dares to tell the truth about cold-blooded Killer Mobs and how they work."-- Mickey Spillaine. Written in prison by author Grey, this legendary novel became the source for Sergio Leone's classic "Once Upon a Time in America."

I didn't know that "The Hoods" was the source for "Once Upon a Time in America," but of course -- on the screen, that rape scene (Tuesday Weld is the victim) is at least as horrific as it was in the book.

[Larry Kart]

That Stephen W. Meader book (one of many) was "Blueberry Mountain," not "Blueberry Hill."

[BruceH]

Speaking of librarians, in junior-high, "library" was something you got a grade in, based on what books you checked out. One semester in seventh grade I read every Horatio Hornblower book I could find and got an "F" in library because my reading wasn't varied enough. I could have strangled that stupid woman; of course, kids who like to read and are lucky enough to find an author they really like will read every book by that author in a row -- what could be more natural?

Indeed! What a freaking dope! You'd think the librarian would be pleased that you were READING, fer kripesake! (Also that seems like a rather advanced reading level for seventh grade; certainly by today's standards.)

[AndrewHill]

Books on dinosaurs, bigfoot and the bermuda triangle. Was also a big fan of the Hardy Boys too. Recall going to the library every couple of days to check out more volumes, which seem endless at the time.

[Christiern]

Books like Treasure Island, The Swiss Family Robinson, and Edgar Wallace, but my favorite was 1001 Arabian Nights.

[Randy Twizzle]

Tom Swift was a favorite as were the Chip Hilton sports books by Clair Bee. There was one book whose author or title I can't recall, but it really affected me. It was about a team of juvenile delinquents who joined a Biddy Basketball league, where they learned the value of honesty, teamwork and all that crap. When I was in the 6th grade I took The Blackboard Jungle out of the library but my mother made me return it the next day.

[T.D.]

Tom Swift was a favorite as were the Chip Hilton sports books by Clair Bee. There was one book whose author or title I can't recall, but it really affected me. It was about a team of juvenile delinquents who joined a Biddy Basketball league, where they learned the value of honesty, teamwork and all that crap. When I was in the 6th grade I took The Blackboard Jungle out of the library but my mother made me return it the next day.

I also read a lot of the Clair Bee books. Another youth "sports author" I really liked was John R. Tunis; I used to devour both those authors' stuff in the jr. high school library (never had to check them out; usually finished a book in one sitting).

I learned to read very early (parents were students and I must have taught myself to some degree), became a super-fast reader, and never read any of the beginner "Dick and Jane"-type stuff. Consequently, my first years in school bored me absolutely out of my skull...

I used to read voluminously, all kinds of books. Somebody above mentioned the Horatio Hornblowers, and I read 'em all, too. Also the "Tarzan" books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. One of the earliest "adult-oriented" books I read was Claude Williams' "Manchild in the Promised Land," about growing up in Harlem (I thought it was great, but one never seems to hear about it any more). Whole bunches of detective stories, e.g. Agatha Christie and Dick Francis. Moralistic American authors like Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser and Upton Sinclair were big favorites. Loved "Studs Lonigan" by James T. Farrell...I could ramble on for a long time.

[Van Basten II]

Remember reading some Jules Verne and mostly sports books.

[jazzbo]

I had a book on Norse mythology (still have it) I read and reread many times called "Children of Odin." I read the Howard Pyle books. I read some science fiction, I was intrigued by the Ace Doubles. I read all of Burroughs I think, form all the Tarzans to all the Mars and Venus and Pellucidar and even The Mucker. I then started on Philip K. Dick (my first was The Zap Gun bought when I was 12 in Addis Ababa) and Robert E. Howard, C. L. Moore, and other "Weird Stories" writers. . . .

I also read a lot of comic books. I was 7 in 1962 and started reading all the Marvel superheroes that were in their infancy then. And my grandmother's attic had a complete collection of Classics Illustrated, and Mad magazine's first ten years.

Later as an adolescent I branched out into medieval and ancient history, and Hammett, Chandler, Cain, McCoy, Ginnes, etc.

My dad taught me to read when I was in kindergarten, and I've been reading and reading every since.

Edited December 3, 2008 by jazzbo

[Jazzmoose]

Then I loved the Happy Hollisters (forgot the author.)

Jerry West was the pen name, I'm too lazy for a web search to find the real name. I learned to read on those books, and still have a set on my shelf. (Okay, I'm missing a couple of the last hard to find ones.)

After the Happy Hollisters, I went through several kids books. Encyclopedia Brown I remember, plus normal nonseries books (hard to remember the names now). I remember reading a few Hardy Boys books. I tried Tom Swift, but thought they stunk.

I wasn't completely lost to books until the sixth grade when I found Jules Verne. After 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island I was lost forever...

Edited to add: My god...how could I forget Dr. Seuss???? My parents must have signed up for that book club as well as the Happy Hollisters, because I remember tons of them, plus related titles like Are You My Mother?, source of the sentence that was burned into my brain for all time: "You are not my mother; you are a snort!"

Edited December 3, 2008 by Jazzmoose

[Larry Kart]

How could I forget John R. Tunis' sports books -- all the baseball novels of course ("The Kid from Tomkinsville," "Rookie of the Year," etc.) but also two fantastic books about Indiana high school basketball, "Yea, Wildcats!" and "A City for Lincoln." Tunis also holds up well to adult re-reading. Philip Roth was a Tunis fan, or at least he read and was affected by his books as a

boy -- they're referred to in the early pages of "American Pastoral."

[Noj]

I read a bunch of Roald Dahl books (Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, The Witches, etc) in primary school. At one point I read all the Tolkeins, at another a bunch of Stephen King books.

I'm one who genuinely enjoyed all the required reading in English courses.