What was the first book you can remember...

[WCGreen]

I think I was about 2 1/2 years old, still crawling/walking stumbling around the house always looking up at stuff. My mom was a substitute teacher back then, working a lot because hey, it was the beginning of the baby boom and a lot of teachers were out having baby's. It was a way for the school districts to hold on to good teachers on the cheap.

Anyway, she was befriended by this older woman. I remember she always wore one of those hats with the netting coming down over her face. She didn't have any children and she loved getting to know the children of the other teachers. Found this out later, talking to my mom. Don't remember her name but she really had a profound effect on my life.

She came over for no other reason but just to give me my first book.

It was a book just for me.

It was Sam and the Firefly. It's a Dr. Sues book.

I had a dream a while back that I was a famous author and was on Oprah and that the big O had gone out and found this woman who changed my life and brought her on stage with me.

I woke up in tears, just like some are coming now, and wish I could some how thank her, some how make her know how much of an impact she had on my life.

I don't know what made me think of Sam and the Firefly.

I do know something.

I'm going to order that book and keep it close so I can see where it all started.

Another note. I have grown very fond of this woman who has eight grand kids. I have been getting to know them slowly and have started to buy some of my favorite books.

Maybe there really is a circle of life.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

1. The Happy Hollisters...

...it was a Hardy Boys / Nancy Drew-style series from Doubleday. They were SMART...it was like the Brady Bunch before the Brady Bunch in terms of the gender of the kids and their ages. If you were a boy or girl in that demographic, there was a member of the family YOUR age, so you could put yourself in the story.

Tame or lame or exciting, I dunno...Doubleday shipped two a month (it was a book club for kids) and I devoured them the minute they came in the mail.

I gave them to a friend's kid when I moved to California. A couple of years ago, out of nostalgia, I picked up a couple of them at a used bookstore.

:toast:

[WCGreen]

3. Encyclopedia Brown...

Thos were the first ones I bought for myself and then headed to the Hardy Boys..

[zabet]

15. Had'em...

read'em and loved'em. Great books.

[carlyhippy]

2. the Dick n Jane books

Carly

[WCGreen]

8. I read those later...

They were Dick in Jane...

[Tangerine LaBamba]

4. "Arabian Nights"

That was my mother's idea of great reading for a kid - but she taught me to read by the time I turned 3, and I owe my lifelong love of words, written and spoken, to what she gave me, so she knew what she was doing.

There were never any "children's" books that I can recall. I just read whatever I could get my hands on, and there were plenty of books, magazines, and newspapers - 4 every day - around...........................

[WCGreen]

7. Even though my mom was a teacher, we didn't have all that many books,..

My Aunt taught elementary school so she would bring books to me.

The first grown up book I remember reading was Treasure Island.

[Blue_In_AK]

33. I was an early reader, too,

as was my youngest daughter. I thought she was just memorizing the books I read her every night because she could repeat them back to me word for word, but then one day she picked up a copy of Stephen King's "The Stand" that was sitting on the coffee table and started reading it aloud from the beginning with no hesitation. She was four years old! Blew me away...

[Brigid]

5. Green Eggs and Ham.

Still hilarious after all these years. My two-year-old nephew loves it. :)

[XemaSab]

6. Goodnight Moon

:D

[pokerfan]

9. Hop on Pop

Dr. Suess

[newcriminal]

10. There's a Monster at the End of This Book

When I was pregnant with each of my daughters I bought it so it would be their first book also.

[davsand]

11. The first book I remember is Peter Goes to School.

The first one I remember actually sitting and reading alone (just for fun) was Harold and the Purple Crayon. I also remember See Tag Run and Fun With Dick and Jane--but those were books my Mom used to teach me how to read.

When I was around Jr High age I donated all my little kid books to the local library. I still feel good about having done that, but I sure would love to have those books back today. I had a huge number of Little Golden Books because when I went to the store with my mom I got a book if I was good at the grocery store.


Laura

[surrealAmerican]

12. Blueberries for Sal

I remember being really impressed that she could be a girl, even without wearing a dress or bows, or having long, flowing hair.

... and, of coarse, it was the sort of silly story I loved at the time.

[kath]

19. Kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk!

Love, love, love that book!

[marzipanni]

47. I loved that book, and another by the same author/illustrator

about the same girl and her sister, as I recall, called, "One Morning in Maine". In one of those books the older girl's tooth comes out on a seaweedy rock. Since I loved an island in Maine my family went to sometimes, these books gave me a sense that I had a connection with the kids in the stories.

I just looked up the books, and was reminded that their author, Robert McCloskey, also wrote "Make Way for Ducklings", another childhood favorite of mine!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McCloskey

[CaliforniaPeggy]

13. Mine? Scuffy the Tugboat...

A few years back, I found a copy of it, and the tugboat with it, as a plush toy...

God, I loved that book!

Yes, there sure is a circle of life...each one of us is part of it...

:hug:


On edit: I think she knew how much you appreciated that book...

[ellaydubya]

20. Wow!!! I think this is the book I was thinking of...........

I saw the topic in the lounge and started thinking- I was around two and this would be 1955- are you around that age? I can't remember the name of the book but this could be it- the little tugboat runs into all kinds of obstacles but makes its way back safely... yes??? I am drawing a blank right now on the details but someone recalling the same book as I have- well, it blows me away. Of all the books.... what can I say, "Nice to meet you, California Peggy!!!!!!!!!! I have had a love for reading ever since.:toast:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

25. My dear ellaydubya!

Nice to meet you too! I am much older than you, but yes, this is the book. He has all sorts of adventures, and almost gets lost at sea...

Till the man with the polka-dot bow tie reaches out and grabs him! And then they all go home, where he is content to swim in the bathtub...

I've always been a reader too!

:toast:

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

14. There was a book of stories my parents read to me.

The ones I mostly remember were Kipling's stories "The Elephant's Child" and "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi." There was also a series of kids' books called "Little Golden Books," and my favorite was "The Color Kittens." Not long ago I found reprints of these books for sale in a bookstore, and reading "The Color Kittens" again after such a long time (it came out in 1949) kinda made me sniffle. My mom used to read it to before I could read... and she's gone now.

[Blue_In_AK]

34. I remember "The Color Kittens," too.

I had it at the same time as "The Poky Little Puppy," which was my personal favorite.

[mysuzuki2]

16. Curious George

I remember my kindergarten teacher reading it to us in 1953. I have read and given that book to all my own children and grandchildren. I see George as the ultimate anti-hero for today's man-he has no clue, he screws up royally at every turn, but somehow everything alesys turns out ok.

[pinniped]

17. Where the Wild Things Are - is one of them.

[Incitatus]

18. Horton Hears a Who

[MrScorpio]

21. The Dictionary

We had a big one. I used to spend hours trying to figure out what new words meant.

[tabbycat31]

22. Where Does My Cat Sleep

the illustrator for the book was a friend of my grandmother's and I was the inspiration for the little girl in the book.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

23. Something for Christmas

[Iggo]

24. Alice In Wonderland...

...and a copy of Hamlet we had floating around the house.

I learned to read so I could read those two books.

[Zomby Woof]

26. They were out having babies

Babies.

Not "baby's".

[marzipanni]

27. I loved this book!

I bought it for my son when he was little, and babies of friends and relatives as they come along. I hope the parents weren't mad at me, because it's pretty repetitive!

[Blue_In_AK]

35. Marzipanni, ME TOO!

I posted below about this book before I read through the responses.

When did you first read it? For me it would have been around 1951 or so. I'm sure the book I learned to read had a different ending than later versions that I bought for my kids. Did you ever notice that?

[marzipanni]

37. I vaguely recall thinking the same thing

but it's been a while since I've read it! My 94-year-old mom still has my old book at the house where I lived from age 5-18. She has a basket of my brothers' and my old children's books to entertain grandchildren when they were little kids, and one great grandchild more recently, and any visiting kids.
I remember there was sign telling the poky puppy he couldn't have rice pudding (?), with which all the other puppies had filled their fat liitle tummies, because he was late coming home. I turned 1 in December 1951, so it was probably 1952 or '53 when I was begging for it to be read to me over and over again. :)

[Blue_In_AK]

39. That's it! Rice pudding.

I've noticed that several stories that I learned as a child were kind of "rewritten" to be "kinder and gentler" at some point before my own kids started reading. I guess some of those old fables really were kind of harsh -- I remember particularly a book of Aesop's Fables that I used to have wherein a LOT of people had terrible things happen to them so that they -- and the kids hearing the stories, of course -- would learn the valuable moral lessons. As an example, when I learned the story of the "Three Little Pigs," the first two got eaten by the wolf after he blew their houses down, and that was that. In later versions they ran off to their brother's brick house and they all ended up having wolf stew for dinner.

I guess we can thank Dr. Spock for that. :)

[Sugarcoated]

28. Alice in Wonderland

My parents had an amazing set of encyclopedias that had a kid's set of condensed classics. I actually remember cracking the letter code on the condensed version of Alice in Wonderland at four years old.

[handmade34]

29. Homer Price

the 1st book I remember reading by myself

[RushIsRot]

30. Buzzer the Bee

My dad read it to me so many times that I memorized it. Occasionally he would leave out a sentence and I'd correct him.

[Lorax7844]

31. I don't read a time when I couldn't read so I'm not sure

I know that the first novel I read cover to cover was White Fang, I loved it. Re-reading it now after knowing that Jack London was a horrible racist, I wish I could name something else.

[Blue_In_AK]

32. The Poky Little Puppy, original version.

I LOVED that book.

I think Little Golden Books or whoever controlled the rights changed the ending of the story sometime in the '60s. What I remember is that the puppy got sent to bed without his dessert or his dinner, one or the other, for continually crawling under the fence, but in later versions that I bought for my own kids, all was forgiven at the end of the story.

[murielm99]

36. I had a lot of Little Golden Books when I was small.

There were so many of them that I don't remember the first one I read, or had read to me. I do remember Little Black Sambo, because I loved the tigers. They were pretty. I know that book is considered racist now, but I never thought of race when I read the story. I just saw a clever little boy.

When I was four, I received a copy of a book called, "Jupiter and the Cats."

That was the first book I remember reading by myself. I didn't go to kindergarten, because my school did not have it. When I went to first grade, they gave us the Dick, Jane and Sally books. I read them, because I could read already. I was bored by them, but kept my opinions to myself. I think I had figured out that my overworked teacher would have had no use for my opinions. It was all right, in spite of that. I always liked school.

[MilesColtrane]

38. "Are You My Mother?" -Dr. Seuss

My older brother convinced me that I would fail when I started school because I couldn't read, so I taught myself to read when I was four, starting with this book.

[Chan790]

40. I remember turning in a second grade book report on The Hobbit.

I have few memories before that one, but that one sticks because I was accused of cheating. I had been a sub-standard student (and in most senses one could say I still am) and the teacher didn't actually think I could read...at all. So I had to bring the book to school and the principal opened to a random page and I started reading it aloud. So they made the teacher take away my zero...she gave me a check-minus instead (that's like a D).

If you can't bear the thought of being shown up by a 7 year old, you probably should not be teaching seven year olds.

[Burma Jones]

41. If I Ran the Zoo - Dr. Seuss

[JitterbugPerfume]

42. Dick and Jane, primer reader

and daddys bible

[Twillig]

43. Big book of Real Trucks

Big Book of real Fire Engines.

[SeaLyons]

44. Babar the Elephant..n/t

[bikebloke]

45. Dick and Jane (and Sally)

There were probably others before.

[Forkboy]

46. The Monster At The End Of This Book

[Lionel Mandrake]

48. In an old house in Paris all covered with vines

lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.
In two straight lines they broke their bread,
brushed their teeth, and went to bed.
The smallest one was what's her name.
...
In the middle of the night,
Miss Clavel turned on her light
and said, "something is not right."
...
And a crack in the ceiling had the habit
of sometimes looking like a rabbit.
...
She turned out the light and closed the door
That's all there is; there isn't any more.

(This is from memory and is probably wrong in places.)

[keroro gunsou]

49. pat the bunny

eol.

[marzipanni]

50. There was a little book store in the small town

near Boston where I was a little kid in the mid fifties. It was a treat to go to the book store and be told by my mom that I could pick out a book to buy. We bought "Ant and Bee", a small blue book, when I was about five or six, and it was still at my mother's house along with a sequel "Ant and Bee" book mant years later. When my son was almost four and we visited grandma, I brought "Ant and Bee" back to California with us. I told my son he could probably read it aloud to me, and at first he thought he wouldn't be able to, but with a little encouragement and about forty minutes, he managed to plow through it as we stretched out on the big bed. It seemed like a wonderful accomplishment to both of us!
On Amazon, it's one of those books that people ask to be published again, as it is no longer available, except at high prices for used books.
http://www.amazon.com/Ant-Bee-First-Alphabetical-Story/dp/0434929662/ref=pd_cp_b_1

[trof]

51. That 'netting' is called a veil.

Used to be quite common on ladies' hats.

[Dangerously Amused]

52. Too Many Kittens

[Drunken Irishman]

53. Either Wacky Wednesday or Cat in the Hat.

Wacky Wednesday was my first favorite, but I may have learned to read by memorizing Cat in the Hat.

[Pool Hall Ace]

54. The Cat in the Hat!

A Child's Garden of Verses :D
Gwendolyn the Miracle Hen :D

[Pharlo]

55. First book I remember

"The Horse who couldn't say 'Neigh' " About a horse who could do an impression of any other barnyard animal, but couldn't 'neigh' like a horse.

First book I remember reading myself was "Dick and Jane"

[auntAgonist]

56. Beatrix Potter books. Peter Rabbit. and... innocently

enough I really liked my "little black sambo" books. I was a child, it was the very early 60's. I was born in '57. Everyone was reading them. I lived in Scotland at the time.

[BarenakedLady]

57. Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka series

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_sq_top?ie=UTF8&keywords=flicka%20ricka%20dicka&index=blended&pf_rd_p=304485901&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0807524948&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1AW4H4MPA0MAPVZKD43W

And Snip, Snap, and Snur

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_0_7?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=snip+snap+snur&sprefix=snip+sn

[pscot]

58. Myrtle the turtle

A terribly sad and moving story about a brave little circus turtle (yes, there were circus turtles back in those days) who falls into the lion's cage and gets her tail bitten off. I had the book and a large 78rpm recording, which I played over and over on a wind-up victrola.

[nuxvomica]

59. Either the Bible or Aesop's Fables

My dad had an edition of the Harvard Classics and Aesop was the first thing I read from that.

[Rowdyboy]

60. I remember having stacks of books as a toddler but none specifically...The 1st book

I clearly remember is a "Dick and Jane" in first grade. The first book I read cover to cover all by myself wa "Black Beauty" when I was 7.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

61. It was a book about aliens from outer space

I don't remember the title, but it had cut-out figures of space creatures with Spock-like ears that popped out of the pages in 3D, showing them traveling to earth in a space ship. I was about 3 and it was back in the early 1950s before I discovered comic books whereby I first learned to read.

[velvet]

62. A book about a gecko

I don't remember the title, or exactly how young I was. It had words and pictures but I don't think I could read at that stage. Nice pics, 50s-style woodcuts as I recall, possibly by some famous Oz artist. What I do remember well is that it was misbound. My mum worked for a publishing house and brought home free rejects. The gecko book had to be turned upside down halfway through.

My parents showered me with books my whole life, bless 'em.

Lovely post, OP.

[livetohike]

63. It was a big book - 365 Bedtime Stories (or something like that)

I was lucky enough to live in a housefull of adults for the first six years of my life and there was always someone to read to me (my Mom, Dad, Grandmother, an Aunt, and two Uncles). It is probably why I was reading by age three. There was a story for each day accompanied by a small picture. None of this all picture books with a little text stuff.

[likesmountains 52]

66. I remember that too..the stories were all about the people on "What A Jolly Street"

[Z_I_Peevey]

67. I loved that book!

My grandmother read it to me...I loved the little imaginary neighborhood so much, I pestered her to keep reading every night. I think we covered the year's worth of stories in a month or two.

I remember that there was map of the neighborhood on the inside covers. There were different versions of the cover art. I had the one with the kindly grandmother.



I understand there's quite a demand for that title in the used book market. I wish there was a reprint; I'd buy it for my grandchildren.

[livetohike]

69. Oh wow! I think the cover we had was of a small town at night..... I

wish I knew what happened to the book. I remember reading from it to my younger siblings in the early 60's.

[likesmountains 52]

72. on a whim I just checked ebay...looks like one available for about $3.

[Z_I_Peevey]

64. The Princess and the Frog

a Little Golden Book, IIRC.

Later on, the first real story I remember was The Boxcar Children. I started school in an old country school--eight grades in two rooms--and the teacher read it to those of us in grades 1-4 each morning.

[rrneck]

65. A biography of Jim Thorpe. nt

[KatyaR]

68. "Pokey the Puppy."

My mom taught grade school, and that was one of her favorite books.

[ashling]

70. Little Golden Books

Davy Crockett

I also remember the Three Bears book in the pic

[Rising Phoenix]

71. A collection of Sesame Street short stories

I remember it being read to me and I believe it was the first book I ever read, though much of it was probably memorized. hehe

The Mystery of The Mysterious Mud Puddle Monster, was my favorite. Silly Big Bird, it was you all along!

[jellen]

73. Peter Pan

I tried to read it a few times but quit. It was apparently above my reading level. I finally finished it but never liked the book. I guess it was too much of an effort . It was the only book in the house.

[DeepBlueC]

74. It was NOT the Bible

I'm grateful for that.

[armyowalgreens]

75. "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie"