What BOOK are you reading right now?

If there were words in the oilcloth book I had at two or three, my mother would have told me about them. Probably one word on a page, cat, for example. I remember looking at the comics section of the LA Times, probably in first or second grade. Kindergarten? I only went for a short while and only remember playing outside and finger painting. Probably was taught the alphabet but I can't visualize that scene, fixated as I am on the finger painting.

What made me like to read? The stories. I'm an odd sort in that as an adult, but also as a child, I haven't been into fantasy writing. Once in a while, but not as much as other people seem to be. Could be that I read to learn about the world, being an only child whose parents moved a lot, and didn't have batches of toys.
Or it could be that my parents weren't either, so that the books I got were relatively realistic tales.


Anyway, I'm still reading Dark Heart of Italy by Tobias Wolf. I'm reading less books lately since I got (it's about to expire) a subscription to the New Yorker, which, when I do get it, I read avidly. On Wolf, interesting guy. I particularly liked the chapter I just finished, about the nature of italian soccer, the beautiful game. This next chapter is about a criminal case, and I just know it will be a thicket of scullduggery by many.

Thanks for that wonderful story. Your prize is a free subscription to The New Yorker. Just PM your name and address .

I could read by the time I got to school (thanks Mum). The teacher used to use me to read to the class at age 6 when she wanted to do something else (still don't know why she did this - was it to prove to other kids they could do it too - seriously, no-one else in the class was ever asked to do it) for half an hour or so at a time.

I can't remember my first books but by age 7 or 8 my grandparents gave me boxes of 'Knowledge - the colour magazine which grows into an encyclopaedia' that a boarder had left behind (an exchange teacher from Canada I think) that I devoured (mostly) - discovered the 'How and Why' series at the local library. I still remember borrowing the Ballet one and pronouncing it in my head 'ball - ette'.

A liberal sprinkling of Donald Duck comics too - dad use to by one every sunday with his three papers.

Example cover


Many more examples

So mostly reading was about learning stuff.

The little fiction I remember from those prepubescent years was reading the Gnome Mobile book and the the ginormous (800+ pages) Readers Digest World's Best Fairy Tales.

I think I discovered science fiction aged 9 or 10 - Robert Heinlein's 'Farmer In The Sky' in a box of books my mum swapped with someone. Windham's 'Day Of The Triffids' not much later.

I was no prodigy though - Algernon-like all that early promise led to nought.

Thank you for that wonderful reminisce (I know, it's a verb)

Somehow you ended up with your calling. That is enough.

I probably didn't start reading till I got to school, but once I started I didn't stop. I went to a small country primary school, which had a pretty small collection of books, so it wasn't long before I was reading the same ones over and over. One time when I had to read out loud to the teacher he made me turn the book upside down and read it that way. He said I had read the books so many times that I needed a bit of a challenge. We had a set of encyclopedias at home, they had a section on myths and legends, I think I just about wore that volume out.
Then I discovered Enid Blyton, would read anything by her, but my absolute favourites were The Enchanted Wood and The Faraway Tree. I still have my copies of them from when I was a kid. When I was a bit older it was Little Women, loved that story.

I was, of course, Jo.



kidding, cherrie, listening. Jo is part of my real name, so I tend to associate.

Funny how our thirst for reading overcomes the dearth of reading material in our childhoods.

My earliest recollection was of the curtains in the room my sister and I shared. My mom had sown the letters of the alphabet ; upper and lower case.
The first magazine I remember in Buenos Aires was in Spanish; called Mundo Infantil: Children's World.
Here's an issue devoted to learning readin' ritin 'n rithmatic

Yes, we wore white starched lab coats.

Later on in Virginia in the fourth grade, our teacher Ms Armstrong would read to us after lunch every day. The Moffats series of books lasted all year...and I was hooked.

Were you Jo in both The Enchanted Wood and Little Women?
I only just realised the same name was in both books.

Wow Panz - you were born in England, raised in Argentina before moving to el norte? is that the timeline?

I'm so dull.

My father was interned by the British at Camp Hay in Australia. He was one of the Dunera Boys and painted this watercolor of the camp. As you know they profoundly influenced Australian life.

http://www.holocaust.com.au/mm/i_australia.htm
After the war he married me mum and they moved to Argentina to join my grandparents. I was born in Buenos Aires.

You're young. You have time.

Oooh, connections upon connections - My mother was a German refugee after the war. Mrs Hinge's maternal grandfather was a wealthy businessman in country Victoria active in the support of recently arrived Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany prior to the war - then the Dunera thing. Shee-it.

I don't have time to have a childhood that involves living in a non-English speaking country and being schooled across the ocean from home. Not this time anyway :-)

PS I borrowed 'Manchild In The Promised Land' (it was in the Uni collection) - thanks for mentioning it!

And back on topic, this was on our new book shelves so I grabbed it - very interesting.

I didn't know about The Enchanted Wood, but related to the Jo in Little Women.
Panz's photo is a reminiscence - we folded our hands at our desks.

I was between 4 and 5, and what influenced me to become a reader was the fact that both my parents were readers and I regularly accompanied my mother to trips to the library so she could return books and take out more, and those included books she would take out for me that I helped to pick out. You had to be at least 4 years old, and be able to write your own name, in order to get your own library card, and, by the day I turned 4, I had practiced printing my name enough to get that card. I wanted that card, just as much as I wanted my driver's license 12 years later, when I got my learner's permit on my 16th birthday.

My mother taught me to read not very long after I got that library card, well before my 5th birthday. She claimed she did it in self-defense, because I was constantly nagging her to read to me. I did learn to read quite quickly, a mastery skill that absolutely thrilled me, because I was suddenly able to decipher those letters on the page and that enabled me to devour even more of those books I now took home from the library. I really enjoyed the process of reading, I enjoyed the simple stories, and I enjoyed my own ability to read. And it was also similar to the way I enjoyed being able to drive 12 years later, and I still enjoy the actual process of both reading and driving, both are liberating activities, both expand your boundaries.

Other than playing with my toys, which allowed me to engage in a lot of imaginative play, and my little box of Crayola crayons, which allowed me to express my artistic side and my love of colors, reading was my favorite activity before I even got to school, and that continued for years, and, in the early years, it included comic books (like Andy Panda and Little Lulu) as well as children's books, and those with animal characters were among my favorites at that young age, along with fairy tales, ethnic folk tales, and the works of Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm. A few years later, I loved the series books-- The Bobbsey Twins, Judy Bolton, Nancy Drew, etc. and looked forward to reading each book in a series. I also went through a phase where I was fascinated by stories about children who were orphans or who had disabilities.

When I entered kindergarten, at the age of 5, my experience was similar to what hingehead described. My teacher would stand me in front of the class, and have me read to them, while she cut out of the room--probably to smoke a cigarette in the hallway. She never asked anyone else to do it because I was the only one in the class who could read, and I knew that. Unfortunately, my advanced status, in both reading and writing, caused me to find the early years of school very boring, apart from crafts activities and things like that, because I was largely unengaged in the class while my classmates were busy learning things I already knew how to do and could complete very quickly. It wasn't until I was in the 4th grade that they figured out they had to give me more work, and more advanced work, to keep me occupied in the classroom. What a relief that was, because I was actively disliking school by then. They hadn't even let me read some books, just to have something to do, while I just sat there with my completed work, staring into space, for what felt like an eternity to an 8 or 9 year old. Just being able to read, at a much earlier age than most, had really given me an edge that was sort of a mixed blessing when it came to school.

I don't know how much my enjoyment of, and dependence on, reading in those early years, was determined by the fact there were few competing sources of excitement. Other than the radio, which had limited children's programming, there were no electronic media one could enjoy at will. TV wasn't even around until I was about 8, and programming was initially very limited, so mostly there was a test pattern on the screen. I liked listening to music, and children's stories, on the records I played on the record player my uncle bought me, and I did enjoy a lot of creative play, roll playing with dolls, making things with clay, drawing, simple stuff--mainly I had to learn to amuse myself--there was no TV, or electronic games, or computers, and, in the early years I didn't have any siblings, and reading was a great help with providing me with a source of stimulation. And I don't remember ever being bored when I was at home. I never expected to be constantly entertained, and I somehow managed to keep myself engaged and content through my own ingenuity. The books, and reading, definitely helped.

I still have one of the very first books I learned to read with--a Dick and Jane book in which I inscribed my name, very proudly and possessively, with my very primitive, but legible, printing. That's how much I loved learning to read--I hung on to that book because being able to read meant so much to me.

My mother, who had attended the first, third and fifth grades of school, read the Readers Digest. Aside from that, the only other book I recall seeing before I started school, was a book that told the story of Heidi, with stills from the Shirley Temple movie (which I still have). I don't recall if we were taught to read in the first grade. In the second, I was moved from the middle group of readers to the first, about two thirds of the way into the year. I was a solitary child, with no friends, other than my brother Sam and so I took to reading in order to have some interaction with people, if only in my imagination. I lived through the characters and the movies I saw also. At first I looked for books with horses in them and then dogs. One of my early favorites was of some orphaned children, who set up housekeeping in an abandoned boxcar. After that, Jinks of Jason Valley. Jinks was a dog, whom the author killed off about two thirds of the way through. I was too disheartened to continue the book for a time, but eventually returned and saw how a pup of Jinks pretty much took her place. But I never forgave the author. I sort of liked Uncle Wiggley and Peter Rabbit. Then, a biography of Jedediah Smith. But my next favorite consisted of two series of books by Walter Farley. The Black Stallion and The Island Stallion. Then an interest in Dickens and science fiction at about the same time. One of my greatest loves is the biography. Too many to mention. I spent the entire fifth grade ignoring my class and reading library books. It was my last year of grade school. I spent a good many years searching out new authors to love, but I don't read that much these days. I am in the middle of a friend's newly published book. Don't know what might follow.

Although my mother and father were both avid readers, I was the third of six children born in a nine year span, so I doubt my mother had much time to sit with me and simply read- she would have had a nine year old, a six year old, a four year old, a three year old, a two year old and a one year old when I was a preschooler-I would have been the four year old. Aside from cooking meals and cleaning house and washing clothes and changing diapers, she also sewed for all the girls and canned fruit and vegetables from her garden, etc. She was sort of amazing, so I never held it against her that one of my most vivid memories is entering kindergarten and standing there while all the kids sang the ABC song to which somehow they all knew the words as I stood there confused and perplexed wondering 'what is this song they're singing and why do they all know these words while I don't?'

Despite that, having been blessed with a good visual memory and loving words and stories enabled me to catch up really quickly and actually sort of race ahead when it came to reading...by fifth grade I was tested as reading at an 11th grade level. I loved school and learning and my father, recognizing this in me, gave me books as presents throughout my entire life.

So I'm guessing I learned to read somewhere between the ages of five and six- after starting kindergarten and by the time I reached first grade.

I should add that I was an avid collector of comic books. I once owned a near complete collection of Classics Illustrated. It is easy to criticize the Classics series, because most of them were based on movies based on books, but some of them inspired me to read the actual books. Carl Barks, author of Donald Duck and originator of Uncle Scrooge, had a wonderfully creative imagination. Same with the staff at EC comics. The Dell four color series had a number of fine books also. This all predates the Marvel takeover. I liked DC comics, to an extent, but I could only read so much of Superman and Batman without becoming bored.

I loved the Classic Illustrated comic books, Edgar--they were wonderful! And, if nothing else, they familiarized you with the plots and characters of so many great books and managed to give you a respect for "literature". And they did help many people to get through an English assignment.