It's hard to say how and when I became a bookworm. My mom read a lot, I often saw her with a book. Although, I don't remember her reading to me. We went to the library often because we didn't have much money.

My brothers were so much older than me, 12 and 18 years older than me. So, I was alone a lot and felt lonely. I had friends but they were sometimes busy. There were no computers and we didn't watch that much TV. So, I would read.

I remember being able to order books through school. There was like a brochure where you could pick books, I think it was called Scholastic. When the books arrived, it was the best thing ever.

My parents were readers so it seemed natural to me to pick up a book to read. I couldn't wait to learn to read. I still remember the thrill I felt when I realized that I recognized some of the words on a page and I knew I had joined the ranks of "those who could read"!

I remember my father taking us to the local library (a very small building and not much of a collection but I was enthralled). We didn't go there after a while as we must have exhausted their possibilities but that didn't matter too much as we made numerous trips to the book store at the local mall. We always had books available for us to read.

The first chapter books that I remember reading were the Honey Bunch series (from the library) followed by all the fairy tale books I could get my hands on, Nancy Drew, The Dana Sisters, The Bobbsey Twins, The Happy Hollisters and on to the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan was my ideal hero at one time!

My dear mother loved to read and was an elementary school teacher. She taught me to read at four, and I've been addicted ever since. She got free samples of textbooks, so I read all the "readers" she received. We lived in the country and didn't have access to a lot of books, so as I got older I reread those we had frequently. I also visited cousins (three sisters) in the summer and read what they had. All my maternal aunts were teachers and valued books.

Yes, Janalyn, I well remember Little Golden Books. I must have read Poky Little Puppy to my daughter 500 times. Once when she was three or four, she received a chain letter (remember those?) for LGBs. We participated and sent one off to someone, and she received several in the mail plus one that was delivered by truck from our best local department store. (This when the books cost a quarter; I mourn the passing of that store.) She got so she would jump up and down when she saw the postman coming, and she's a reader, too.

I don't remember exactly how I started. My mother read a lot. She may have read to us to get us off to sleep during the blackout or in the air raid shelter during the Blitz as we were in London for some years of WW2.
I remember that books were scarce and we were glad of pass ons. I had an old Rupert Bear book given me when (probably about 5 or6) I was ill in bed and read the couplets under the pictures. Later I realised that the text at the bottom was the story in full. For some reason I thought it was advertising! I must have read my grandmother's women's magazines to know about advertising.
I was on a "waiting list" to get Sunny Stories, the Enid Blyton magazine. Only so many went to each newsagent and you had to be registered for your newspapers and magazines in the same way as food registration at the butchers etc. I did get them eventually as a child on the "reading list" moved away from the area, we were told.
I was allowed to join the library earlier than usual as my mother assured the Librarian that I was good with books. They were such a precious commodity. You again had to go on lists to read the popular authors. I never knew that there was a second Alice, as we only had Alice in Wonderland in that library.
The first new book I had was a Sunday School prize. "The Tale of Pigling Bland" by Beatrix Potter. Again, I never knew there were others in that series. I bought the complete set for my Great-grandchildren as birth gifts. Both the books and CD recordings now!
Wonderful how the memories return. As I wrote this, I heard a voice asking "Is she on the reading list?" I had forgotten that part of my past entirely! It must have been the woman at the newsagent when we went to pick up my copy of Sunny Stories!

I remember the Little Golden books. I also remember Beverly Cleary books and then Judy Blume. I hadn't thought about that in a long time. I liked The Hardy Boys better than Nancy Drew because I had a crush on the Hardy Boys. And then they were on TV.

My daughter had a hard time to learn how to read, she had a learning disability, I was very worried about her. I read a lot to her and now she is a big reader.

I grew up in a family of readers and a house full of books, so it was just the natural progression of life for me to become a reader. The older of my brothers (nearly eight years older than me) was probably my biggest inspiration because he took it upon himself to edify his two siblings by reading to us and teaching us how to read. His taste naturally inclined to what boys like, so it wasn't until I was seven or eight years old that I read many books about girls.

I remember the Little Golden Books very well. Scuffy the Tugboat by Gertrude Crampton, illustrated by Tibor Gergely was my favorite, and it might have been the first book where I actually read the words instead of memorizing them.

I also liked to read the 'funny papers', especially the colored ones in the Sunday edition of the Des Moines Register. I followed Al Capp's Li'l Abner, Gasoline Alley, Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Rube Goldberg's comic strips, and Terry and the Pirates.

I started reading the Famous Young American series of biographies when I was in the second grade, at first the ones about boys: Nathaniel Greene, Nathan Hale, Peter Stuyvesant, Miles Standish, Raphael Semmes, John Fremont, George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln. Then I discovered the girls, starting with Nancy Hanks Lincoln, and I think I wound up reading the whole series as it was published up to my time in school. At about the same time I read the Little Maid series set in the days of the American Revolution by Alice Turner Curtis: The Little Maid of Narragansett Bay, The Little Maid of Fort Ticonderoga, The Little Maid of Old Virginia, et al.

Janalyn, I was a peculiar child because I loathed Dr. Seuss! A teacher suggested that I read Seuss, but I was a stubborn little twit and would have no part of his books. There was something about them that offended me -- maybe it was the grotesqueness of the drawings or maybe it was what I perceived as the 'silliness' in the wordplay. However, when my boys were little, they loved Dr. Seuss so I eventually found out what I had missed.

My father was a reader, but my mother was not, and never read anything other than the newspaper, so it is a bit of a mystery to me that she encouraged my sister and me to read. It may be because my sister had polio as a baby and so wasn't able to walk without callipers and crutches, and had several operations before she was 10. Mum probably saw reading as a good way for her to entertain herself (we didn't have TV). As she was 7 years older than me, and liked to play school, I suspect she may have taught me to read.

My early books were hand-me-downs from her - Noddy was probably the first, along with The Famous Five and other Blyton books. I had two Bobbsey Twins books and one Cherry Ames, and also read a lot of Disney comics. We had a very good school library, and also had the mobile library come to the school once a fortnight (a bus with bookshelves), so I borrowed regularly as well as having my own books. I remember reading Black Beauty, the Dr Doolittle books, Heidi and many other well loved books.

Both my parents love reading. I think it was my mother who made me a reader. She read a lot to me and my brother when we were kids. Once I could read for myself I went and reread all the books mom had read to me and more. I loved the independence of being able to read for myself and since my parents didn't censor my reading I read a lot of grown-up books too, but I preferred (and collected) the Dr. Doolittle books, Enid Blyton's Adventure books and Famous Five books and books of folk-tales and fairytales. Today travelogues, mysteries and fantasies are still among my favourite genres.

I was bullied at school and books were a welcome escape from that, but of course all the indiscriminate reading meant I had quite a developed vocabulary for my age, which made the bullying worse and made me dive even deeper into books. It became a habit, one I still hold onto.

My parents and grandparents were all great readers. I think my father's large library in our den inspired me. He had an incredible collection of history, biographies, some novels, and philosophical works. I can recall vividly picking up his 1937 copy of Gone With the Wind at approximately age 8 or 9 and trying to decipher it. A few years later, I read the entire novel. One of the best Christmas gifts I ever received was Little Women, from my mother. It had been her favorite book when she was a girl. I still cherish my battered copy.

My mother frequently took me to the Carnegie library in Atlanta, GA which, to my mind, was like a veritable feast. My aunt was a librarian in the Atlanta system and collected prize winning childrens' books, which I enjoyed perusing.

I grew up in a house full of books with parents who liked to read. Not much money and not much TV so reading was what we did. Regular visits to the public library were the highlights of our weeks in the summer, and the school library served the same purpose during the school year.

Rosefolly

FFIW, Frieda, I don't think you were a peculiar child at all for loathing the Dr. Seuss books. I found them positively repulsive and would not go near them!

I don't remember not being able to read. My mother said I learned around the age of four on my own, which is not terribly unusual. The first thing I read was the Sunday Comics. I loved them, as did my older siblings, and we all poured over them every week. Mom said I used to pretend to read them and one day she realized that I actually was reading.

My mother had all of us memorizing poetry literally as soon as we could talk - actually before. Obviously growing up in a household of avid readers was a huge influence on me.

My mother had bought me a wonderful huge Mother Goose book. Instead of reading bedtime stories, sometimes we would lie in the dark and take turns reciting them to see who could say them the longest. Funnily enough, I frequently won; it was years before I figured out why.

My dad made up his own bear stories to tell. He had a terrific growl.

I didn't learn to read until I started school at 7 but I picked it up fast. My mother read to me and my brothers every night at bedtime and whenever she had the time between her houskeeping chores. My first strong literary memory is the first Pippi Longstocking book my mother read to me when I was 6. I think I remember it so well because mother laughed as much as I did.

When I was 8 we moved to a small town and left my grandfather who lived next door to our old house and hadn't wanted to leave the bigger city. I stayed with him for a week after the move and had nothing to read. So I walked all alone two miles to the central city library and got my own library card, my first, and walked back to grandpa's with my books.

When I was 9 I was in hospital for 11 days with scarlet fever and isolated the whole time. An aunt came once but could only look at me through a glass window and could leave some comic books. My parents lived too far away to visit but a former child patient had left 13 books from the hospital library in the room so I was happy enough. I have been an avid reader since then.

My Dad always read to me from MY BOOK HOUSE books which we had. They were very sophisticated stories and one of my favorites was the Russian tale of The Ice Queen.
I can remember saying as a little one "Read me, Daddy!"

Perhaps that is what started me on my love of written words but the really clencher was when I was 9 years old and got my first little library card.
Our local library was in a small old house with wavy oak floors. The book shelves were set up in the lower rooms.
I had discovered my own paradise !
The first book I took out was Blueberry Summer.
I was officially hooked !

In seventh grade we were allowed to order paperbacks through the Teenage Book Club .
I filled my bookshelves !

To this day books never cease to excite me.
There is nothing quite as wonderful as having TBR piles, a comfy chair, snuggly shawl and a cup of hot, sweet chair latte :0)

Let the world go by.................*sigh*

Make that "chai" latte.........teehee

My youngest brother, who was 13 years my senior, taught me to read using a primer that was lying around the house, I think called Laidlaw Basic Readers. I was very proud of myself when I came to the last story in the book, which had an illustration I was fond of. It was called "Dark Pony" and became a favorite story of mine.

I was very eager to learn to read. Everyone in my family did a lot of reading. Though we had no newspapers, we had thousands of books. My father collected books and even bound some of them.

I recall watching the occasional vehicle go by the house where we lived, which wasn't on a busy street--so there weren't very many vehicles.

Conspicuous among the passing vehicles would be large trucks having "HBC" (Holsum Bread Company) or "JTL" (Jones Truck Lines) emblazoned on their sides. I was fascinated by these enormous letters and set about copying them surreptitiously onto the wall of my room. (Paper was scarce at the time.)

The household had a set of anagrams, most of which were missing, but I enjoyed them as toys.

These were the kinds of experiences that may have induced me to want to learn to read.

Years later I would teach young adults who had had no books or any other reading material in their homes when they were children. No anagrams, no reading relatives, nobody binding books. And probably no typewriters. My mother's typewriter enchanted me, and when she wasn't looking I was often sitting there pretending to type.

It is hard to imagine so deprived a childhood as my students must have had. To them it wasn't deprived at all. They had no idea what they had missed.

--That made it all the sadder.

I wonder how many of the kids today find time to read. When I was growing up, we had a black and white tv for the longest time, with I think, two channels.

Now kids often have tvs and computers in their bedrooms. And so many, especially the boys, are playing video games that are addictive.

We limited tv time with our kids. The two computers are in the family room. No playstations or Xboxes. They never really complained, We did buy them some computer programs like Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego, the Yukon trail and some program on Egypt where you had to build cities and pyramids (I played that one too!) Learned a lot.

The library was like an extension of our home and we read nightly to both the kids in their rooms, and then, of course, they started reading to us. My husband would take one, I would take the other and they were always allowed their owning reading time before lights were switched off. It was lovely. I got to read so many kids' books; I am amazed at what is out there now.

And now you have these computer books which apparently teach the kids to read so the parents don't have to be there with them. Just sad.

Hmm. I have no idea what inspired me to start reading. I don't remember not being able to read, and I have always loved it. I imagine that my parents read to me, but I have absolutely no memory of it.

One of my abiding memories was my first day at school; we were given out books or reading cards which were associated with our reading level (Heaven knows how they knew that on the first day- probably they tested us, but I don't remember that.) Anyway, I was given quite a reasonable book, which had about ten short stories in it, which I settled down and read straight through. When I finished it, I took it back to my teacher to ask for a new one - only to find she hadn't even finished giving out reading books to the whole class. I was sent away and told to read it again, as I couldn't have read it properly. As I went back to my desk in a sulk, I saw someone else reading the same book as me - he was just starting the third story in the book, and I clearly remember thinking how slow he must have been. (I was very probably an insufferable little prig, actually!)

My parents did not have many books in the house - perhaps twenty or thirty? - and none of them were books that appealed to children.

But we always had a daily newspaper - a tabloid, not a quality - so there was always something to read in the house. And we had a library van which came round once a week to the local shops. I remember finding The Phantom Tollbooth in it - the first book I ever fell in love with. I renewed it over and over again. Never crossed my mind it might be possible to actually go out and buy it. I suspect, in any case, that it was only available as a hard-back, and we wouldn't have been able to afford it.

A little later, when we could afford a car, we'd go to the big library in the town every couple of weeks. Bliss!

Now I have a few thousand books of my own, and I always used to read to my children - and, strangely enough, all of them love reading.

Martin, your story makes me wonder if those of us who didn't have enough books at home to read incessantly are the ones who have a houseful of books now. Count me in.

I don't remember being read to as a child, nor do I remember being given books as gifts. I do remember my mother, and later, my older sister reading, mostly mysteries.

I really do not remember when I started reading books, because books for kids did not appeal to me. But I started reading "grown-up" books when I was about 12 or 13. I was a fan of Agatha Christie mysteries, though I would skim the parts I thought were boring.

When I got to high school, I started reading classics. Oddly enough, I did not receive any encouragement nor praise from teachers for being well read. I still wonder about that. (I now suspect now that I was because I was actually better read than they were.) My school had a fairly good library, though its books appeared to be barely read by fellow students. I remember reading Willa Cather, Truman Capote, etc., at this time. By my teens I knew loved books, and loved buying them when I had money.

Now in my forties, I consider myself to be pretty well-read. But I am not a fast reader, and I am often amazed at how many books fellow RPers can absorb in a year. I also have a few prolonged reading slumps. Do these ever happen to any other RPers?

Carolyn, growing up with books in every room, crack, and crevice didn't stop me from acquiring more and more and more books. Then I inherited all the books I grew up with when my mother dismantled the house she lived in for nearly sixty years. I don't know how many thousands of books I have. Most are in storage, and I may just leave them to my children to sort and do with as they wish because I just can't bear to do it myself. Practically every book I have brings back a memory, and to get rid of books is like giving away my memories. Hoarding is said to be a mental quirk, and I believe that's true. But I'm not ready to do anything about my quirk! :-)

Timallan, I have periodic reading slumps but not prolonged ones. I have a particular problem reading fiction, particularly new fiction. I get very impatient with it. But if I immerse myself in nonfiction, I will eventually get back around to reading a novel or two. Sometimes I reread old novels. Since I already know what happens in them, I don't get antsy with the authors who try my patience with new material. It's another quirk of mine, I guess. I love new things in nonfiction.

Woodnymph, you and I are in a definite minority re Dr. Seuss. :-) Actually, there are quite a number of children's 'classics' that never appealed to me: Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan spring to my mind.

Am I the only person here who was a 'slower reader'?
I grew up in what was technically my Grandfather's house. He and my Father had moved into it on the death of my grandmother in the 1930's and had been looked after/waited on by a housekeeper. During WWII my Father married and brought my Mother to live there . . . and boy did she resent Grampy . . . and being told by neighbours that she was lucky to have a roof over her head, as though she had been rescued from the gutter.
So, I was often left with Gramps, who between sleeping and looking at the sports pages would read to me. My Grandmother who worked in a US book store/library often sent American books, so I had several little Golden books plus a few early 'Ladybird' books. I loved listening to stories but never once did it occur to me to try and read them myself. Reading was just something that Grown-ups did.
I really struggled at school with reading and can still remember the incomprehension when given a card with pictures on it. A cat, a dog a doll etc. With the card came a small tin containing individual words. Of course the idea was to match the words to each picture. This I could not do because I never recognised any of the words! It appeared no-one (certainly not the teacher a kindly young woman) knew how to help me.
Spelling tests were equally dreaded. I always go nothing out of ten and was late home to lunch as I had to write out my many mistakes five times each. I remember the 'correct' words were written on the board but I never knew which was which!
As we were never given words to learn or take home and practice, the tests must have been hit and miss anyway.
'Reading' took place in small groups and I was so useless the 'best reader' leading the group would kindly let me off my turn for which everyone was grateful.
It wasn't until I was probably nearly seven and had received a copy of What Katie Did for a Christmas present from US Granny, that my Father, not a 'family man' by nature, and bored with all this quality time told me to read the book to him. He sat me on the floor gripping me with his knees and soon found it was quite beyond me. I clearly remember him turning to my Mother and saying 'Why can't she read?"
Mother probably answered "I don't know, that's why we send her to school, shouldn't they be teaching her?"
She most likely went on "Well I was reading Scott and Dickens when I was seven/eight." Our parents loved to tell us how good they were at 'stuff' and how useless we were!
That seemed to be the Damascene moment. It still took me some years to be able to cope with a 'proper' book, but fear (of my Father) was the starting point.
And I still don't know what it was that Katie did. ;-)

I do think growing up without a TV influenced my childhood reading. My parents did not get a telly until I was in high school because they believed it might "ruin my eyes." So I never quite got hooked on programs that my peers watched voraciously.

As a child, I was often bored and recall taking Nancy Drew mysteries to read at table in restaurants surrounded by adult conversation.

Growing up with my parents' large library never kept me from my own book collecting. At one time, I could have opened a small lending library from my home. When my parents and aunt died, I inherited all their books, plus the books my husband had collected before we married, and my own favorites, picked up along the way. When I moved here, I finally had to downsize and sell two thirds of my books. Some of these I still miss. I kick myself whenever I return to rummage sales and pick up more bargains --- always more books! People come to my apartment and are amazed at all the bookcases and bookshelves, filled to the overflowing limit.

Whenever I get into a reading slump, I merely turn to my old favorites on my own shelves and re-read them. The classics are the ones that I can always find new meanings in, no matter how often I re-visit them. (e.g. The Wanderer, Too Late the Phalarope, My Antonia, Little Women, and Pan, to name only a few).

In my early childhood there was no TV, no radio, and no newspapers. In my teens there were newspapers and radio but no TV. Others had TVs but there were still many who didn't.

I think not having the constant distraction of TV played a part in making me a reader too.

I've been in households where the TV is constantly on. It's almost part of the wallpaper--that's how omnipresent it is.

I don't think it matters whether a person comes to reading at age 3 or age 12 or whatever--so long as sooner or later you ended up enjoying reading.

Have faith Janalyn, kids today do read, and not just the avid readers either (none of my kids have computers or TV's in their rooms)! But they are allowed to read books via iPad, which they do often!

Where I live the schools require the kids from 1st grade forward to read pretty regularly. All the kids I come in contact with often give me some awesome recommendations, so they are definitely reading!

Books, gah, I hated them! Being the youngest of 3 children, in a time when reading wasn't majorly required, I did as little as I could, and no one ever read to me! LOL! I think I finally discovered I could read around 4th grade, but OMG it was torture! The kids in my class would be chapters ahead of me in what seemed like seconds, so I developed an aversion to reading because I was torturously slow reader! I don't think I truly picked up a book on my own until I was in 8th grade visiting my sister, whom I hadn't seen in 3 years, for March Break, she had shelves of Stephen King Books, and I was curious. She took me to school with her one day and her only request was that I bring a book to read so I didn't interrupt stuff. In my hands, I had Danse Macabre by Stephen King. Probably one of his driest books, but I loved it!! When I went home and back to school, my friend and I started reading Stephen King books together. I was hooked but only to one author.

Over the years I expanded my repertoire of books and authors. I still read incredibly slowly, but I'm good with that, it doesn't stop me from reading anymore!

DH and I read to our kids pretty regularly (used to be nightly - must get back to that) though I've been slacking with the youngest lately, she is hard to get a handle on and has clearly defined opinions of her own!

When my kids discover that they can read on their own, we hit the library (usually around age 5) and they get their own open library card (not restricted to kids section.) So the library is still very much an extension our our home, we visit nearly weekly, in fact we were just there today! :)

Due to the freedom of our schedule, the girls and I travel a fair bit for various classes and so we always have an audio book going in the car. Usually something that is suitable to all of us! :) It takes forever for us to get through the books though, because we're constantly pausing to discuss and predict what will happen next or wonder why the author chose to make certain things happen!

Interestingly my 12 yr old has loved books since she was less than 1 yr and devours them at a disturbing rate! My 7 yr old has just taken off in her reading this year. Now I just have to get the 4 yr old going and we're set.

Grumpy, you say that you were a slow reader, did you read books word for word? I rarely do. For some reason I skip read through a book and only occasionally in a chapter do I read each word carefully. This has a couple of consequences because I can miss things but I can also reread and find things that I didn't pick up the first time!
I found that I was doing this when I was 16 and during a discussion about a book, realised I hadn't taken in quite a lot of it.
I think the only books I have read carefully are the Spellman series by Lisa Lutz as they are so complicated!

For whatever it's worth, annpan, I do not read prose word for word. As you say, I can often re-read and pick up new meanings I'd missed. This is a plus, I think, often a re-read is not boring to me.

When reading poetry, however, I find I must often read it word for word, due to the complexities.

We were read to as children and I loved the Mother Westwind stories and Babar. Like entering another kingdom.
My boys were blanket babies (is that term still used ?) and the librarian could spot us coming. As soon as they could scribble their names they had library cards. (Television was limited, as it had been for me.)

Iris, what are blanket babies, please. Google didn't help!

Ann ~ the boys took their baby blankets with them everywhere! On 80 F. days their blankets were draped around their necks! My husband asked what was going to happen when they went to school. I said I guess I'll to make jackets out of them.

Iris, thanks for the explanation. Little Linuses, then!
All the info that I got from Google concerned ads for baby blankets with embroidered baby names and Blanket Jackson. Nothing that seemed to explain the term! Too many hits anyway.