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Post by Silva on Jun 13, 2011 0:05:12 GMT -5
Anyone else read the Magic Treehouse series when they were young? I used to get them from the Scholastic book order pamphlet they would pass around at my school. Anyway, they were these fantastic books about a brother and sister who find this old treehouse in the woods absolutely packed with books of varying historical time and place, and they would read them and be, quite literally, transported into another world. I had a moment a few years ago after I found an old copy (Mummies in the Morning), and I was like, holy shit, it's a METAPHOR. But yeah I hold them responsible for me being a reader. I read those! I enjoyed them, but they weren't responsible for me being a reader. I think I just... liked reading, period. |
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Post by cyanea on Jun 13, 2011 0:44:30 GMT -5
Scholastic book order pamphlet Holy crap, I remember those things! I always wanted books from them, but my parents were pretty poor back then. |
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Post by memcgeady on Jun 13, 2011 9:54:48 GMT -5
I honestly don't even remember a time where I didn't read. However, the biggest thing that made me really want to read was horses. When I was little I was obsessed with them but I wasn't able to get lessons. In lieu of that, I read every single book I could get my hands on that was about horses. I read all the Marguerite Henry books and most of the Black Stallion books by Walter Farley. Outside of equine interests though, I did love The Boxcar Children and when I got to middle school I got into the Brian Jacques books. Who knew a bunch of woodland creatures living in an abbey and going on crazy adventures could be so fascinating!
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alligator
Armadillo Pup
so it goes.
Posts: 18
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Post by alligator on Jun 13, 2011 10:37:03 GMT -5
I've always been a reader, but I guess what got me really passionate about reading was the Harry Potter series! They came out when I was in second or third grade, I believe, so at first my dad and older brother would read them to me. Eventually I got to the point where I could do it on my own (third or fourth grade, probably?) and ever since then I've been crazy about books. I also fell in love with the Lord of the Rings trilogy around fifth or sixth grade (though I don't think I understood much of what I was reading) so those also probably played a part.
Oh! And the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. I loved those as a child as well.
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Post by Vergissmeinnicht on Jun 13, 2011 12:08:03 GMT -5
I'm not going to lie. It was definitely Harry Potter. My mom got me the first two books for Christmas in second grade and I fell in love pretty fast.
Also probably the Nancy Drew books. My elementary school library just had an entire shelf dedicated to those and the Hardy Boys. I probably read about 50 of them.
Also it was The Giver and Esperanza Rising that really led my transition from children's books into the YA genre and kept me a bookworm as I got older.
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Post by embonpoint on Jun 13, 2011 14:11:29 GMT -5
Oh! And the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. I loved those as a child as well. Narniaaaaa<333333333333333! Also, definitely need to mention the Biff and Chip/Magic Key books, because they definitely made me a reader in the sense that they were the books with which we all learnt to read at school. |
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Annie Ozone
Young Armadillo
Death of Cars, Reader of Books, Drinker of Booze, and Generally Accident-Prone Lady
Posts: 88
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Post by Annie Ozone on Jun 14, 2011 22:36:06 GMT -5
Anyone else inherit their older sibling's library? I had pretty much the complete set of Baby-Sitter's Club and Nancy Drew books from my sister and she would quiz me on them. (She's an archivist now, if you're curious.) She also had a bunch of Louisa May Alcott and the Anne of Green Gables book/series--Eight Cousins was my favorite book for the longest time.
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Post by Alex Pinto on Jun 20, 2011 10:51:52 GMT -5
I have a lot of books from my childhood that I remember reading over and over and over again (including Nancy Drew, Babysitter's Club, Chronicles of Narnia) but none of them really turned me into a reader.
That happened when I was four years old and I learned to read Are You My Mother? all by myself. I perfectly remember looking at the pages and not understanding these random letters and then realizing that they were grouped together and suddenly I could understand the words. Of course, this was about 20 years ago so my mind has probably romanticized this memory but I don't really care. It was a really profound moment for me and I haven't stopped reading since.
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Post by Chelsea on Jun 20, 2011 11:07:35 GMT -5
To be completely honest, it was Harry Potter. I learned to read when I was 4, and I read The Sorcerer's Stone when I was five... even though it took me an entire year to finish the book, I loved it! Harry Potter is definitely responsible for my love of books. Though I also have to credit Mary Pope Osborne, and Laurie Halse Anderson. I loved the Magic Tree House books and I read Fever 1793 about 50 times when I was in fourth grade!
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Post by evenpottiesneedtoe on Jun 22, 2011 14:03:54 GMT -5
I've loved books my entire life.
The first 'big' book I read on my own was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. In kindergarten I saw an ad for the movie that was to come out when I was in first grade, and I thought it looked really good. MY dad had/has a rule that we can't see a movie that's based on a book until we read it. I was as stubborn as I am now, so I refused any and all help reading it (even though it was years ahead of my reading level). I could already read at that age, but it was a struggle to make it through the book and lead to multiple mispronunciations in my mind, but that was the beginning of my love affair with books.
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Annie Ozone
Young Armadillo
Death of Cars, Reader of Books, Drinker of Booze, and Generally Accident-Prone Lady
Posts: 88
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Post by Annie Ozone on Jun 22, 2011 14:35:06 GMT -5
MY dad had/has a rule that we can't see a movie that's based on a book until we read it. Your dad is my hero. I think it's really interesting that most people on this board seem to remember a specific book that got them into reading. I can't remember not reading. Part of it is that I got destructive when I was bored, and books were a good way to shut me up; the other part is that books were the one thing my parents would always buy me. I had to justify chocolate and cereal and movies, but never books. And then I grew up and my bank account was like PS BOOKS COST MONEY. Bummer. |
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Post by Mary Sandals on Jun 22, 2011 15:50:57 GMT -5
Scholastic book order pamphlet Holy crap, I remember those things! I always wanted books from them, but my parents were pretty poor back then. It was always the most potent kind of agony in my young heart to go through and circle all the books I wanted and to never get them...ahh, sadness. However, the book that made me the proud English Major that I am today? Harry Potter. I always loved books, I loved reading, short stories, the children's (btw, Firefox is telling me children's isn't correct, thoughts Armadillos?) books I read in school, but Harry Potter made me realize how truly amazing books are. I ate the series up. I lived it. I not only truly discovered my love for literature right then and there, but also my love for writing. It blew my mind. All the other books that I love to this day came after. |
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Post by Eternal Lobster on Jun 22, 2011 18:42:56 GMT -5
(btw, Firefox is telling me children's isn't correct, thoughts Armadillos?) I noticed this the other day! And I disagree with it. It's plural but plural nouns can be possessive. I don't see how else you could signal it without the 's. "Childrens' " would be wrong because "children" is already plural.... I love you Firefox but I don't know what your problem is. |
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Post by mollywobbles on Jun 23, 2011 23:07:03 GMT -5
One that stands out to me is The Pinballs by Betsy Byars. It's about foster children who are taken in by a family which has issues of its own. I related to the character of Carlie on some level. I was never a foster child, but her personality reminded me of myself.
Someone above mentioned Nancy Drew. I can't believe I forgot those books! I loved them so much in elementary school. I was even talking to a classmate about them today. Well, I mentioned them anyway. That said, The Pinballs stands out to me as a book that showed me what books could do.
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andy
Young Armadillo
Posts: 80
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Post by andy on Jun 24, 2011 2:07:38 GMT -5
I always hated children's books - especially when I was young, it always seemed like either the main characters were incredibly irritating or the writers were trying to convince me to believe things which were obviously false and could never happen - which annoyed me even more than annoying main characters. But I had to spend my summers at my granny's house and I didn't have anyone to play with (because she lives in a really tiny village and there were only two other girls my age around) so I ended up reading a lot of fairy tales (she had the unabridged Arabian Nights, a big collection of books on world folk tales and a really huge book with the Grimm Brothers tales) and later on a lot of Jules Verne because for some reason she had about a douzen of his books. But I really liked nonfiction books - especially ones on biology - which were actually pretty advanced compared to what we were doing in school. I was relieved to discover that not all fiction books are full of nonsense fantasy when I became old enough to be given 'grown up' books -which was probably half way through middle school, I think- and started reading a lot more fiction books then.
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