Childhood Reading Meme

From Semicolon

1. How old were you when you learned to read and who taught you?
I was four; I was looking at the pages of Go, Dogs, Go and suddenly saw the connection between the letters and the sounds. I recall it as a solitary moment, but I suspect my mother had already given me some basic sound/letter lessons from a comic strip phonics course she had cut out and pasted in a notebook.

2. Did you own any books as a child? If so, what’s the first one that you remember owning? If not, do you recall any of the first titles that you borrowed from the library?

As far back as I can remember, I had a few shelves of books. I don't know what came first, maybe the Bible I got when I was about four. (One of those little ones with Jesus Feeding the Five Thousand on the cover--I think they still make them.)

3. What’s the first book that you bought with your own money?

Me? Spend money? It probably was some battered paperback copies of the Federalist Papers and the Wealth of Nations, but that wouldn't have been until I was a teenager. Long before then I had earned books through our Bible memory program and through my mother's scheme to get us to finish our schoolbooks by the end of the year by giving us a book apiece.

4. Were you a re-reader as a child? If so, which book did you re-read most often?

Of course. When you've read everything interesting in the house, there's nothing to do but go read it again. (Not that our holdings were small, mind you.) I have no idea what I re-read the most, but Alice in Wonderland was probably way up there, along with The Phantom Tollbooth, Anne of Green Gables, and, well, pretty much everything else.

5. What’s the first adult book that captured your interest and how old were you when you read it?

If Lord of the Rings counts as an adult book, then I was about ten when I read it.

6. Are there children’s books that you passed by as a child that you have learned to love as an adult? Which ones?

Not on purpose. There are some I wasn't allowed to read as a child that I've since come to like, but that's a separate topic.