What was the first grown up book you read/had read to you as a kid? My mom read on KonTiki

[applegrove]

when I was about 8. About some scientists rebuilding a Polynesian type boat to try to prove that the people who arrived in there came from South America. Loved it. I should read it again some day.

[ThoughtCriminal]

1. Ironically I think it was "Childhood's End"

I read it again a few years ago - same story, very different feelings.

[Hayabusa]

2. Jurassic Park

I was about nine and the movie had just come out and I wanted to read the book that it was based on. Like most books, I ended up liking the written word compared to the film, but there some parts (especially the more scientific and mathematic) that went completely over my head until a later read through.

[MiddleFingerMom]

3. Maybe still pre-school when I was showing off by sounding out MiddleFingerMomDad's engineering books

.
.
.
... and I don't remember, but I bet I started with some of his adult science fiction books. "Stealing" his books
started me on a lifelong affair with science fiction, though I admit I'm still hooked on the classic authors.
.
.
.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

4. When I was about 10 my mother gave me a copy of

I never promised you a rose garden. She had been confined to a mental hospital for a few years when I was age 7 to 9 and I guess she wanted to help me understand. I read catch 22 for the first time of my own volition when I was 12. It was one of the very few books I have read more than once.

[Ohio Dem]

5. I think it was Red Dragon by Thomas Harris.

I snuck it off the bookmobile when I was in the fourth or fifth grade. Scared the hell out of me!

Honestly, that's the first one I remember, but it probably was something else that I'm not remembering.

[Scuba]

6. My dad's detective novels, pulp fiction with lots of sex and gunfights. I was five. I loved 'em.