Anyone remember their first 'big' kids book?

ally2

By first 'big' book,I mean the first time you remember reading a book with no pics, pure text, small font and getting hooked.

My first was a Famous Five. I can't remember the exact tale (apart from the picnics and ginger beer) but I remember how excited I was to get and read a book of my own that looked like an adult's book.

Anyone else remember their first 'big' kids book?

chenguin

I believe mine was one of the ''The Babysitters Club'' series from Ann Martin.
I loved those books. I remember there was like special editions that came out I used to get them as presents.
Those were good memories!!!

IvyTheTerrible

Mine was Robinson Crusoe. My aunt gave it to me as a present...I was only about 7 so it was way too advanced for me. I remember having to use the dictionary to look up words. In the end I didn't finish it (I did later). Looking back, I was lucky that didn't put me off reading!

gaf1983

Think mine was Enid Blyton's The Adventurous Four. Though I remember somewhat over-ambitiously borrowing both Jurassic Park and a biography of Nelson Mandela from the library when I was still in second class... don't think I made it past the first few pages in either of them - it was physically draining! The letters were so small!

MultiUmm

Hmm .. I think it was a book about racism in the deep south of America during the 1930's. Really good book, just wish I could remember the name of it.

I vaguely remember it having the word "burning" in the title.
Not that knowing one word is much good to me. :rolleyes:

pauline fayne

Mine was Heidi . I think i was about seven . I loved it and was shortly afterwards given Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson ,(neither of which i could finish !) by an uncle
.I remember they were all Dean Childrens Classic books . I was talking to a couple of friends about this recently and we wondered who was responsible for selecting the books in this series as some of them were practically unreadable for our age group .
I remember having nightmares after reading a few chapters of Wuthering Heights !

ally2

I remember trying to read Robinson Crusoe too and not finishing it. Again, think I was too young or maybe just didn't like it. I was given David Copperfield at the same time. It was a hardback copy and I struggled to read that too. I pretended I read the whole thing though, to impress my parents and make my little sister jealous!

missmatty

Furious Banana wrote: »

Hmm .. I think it was a book about racism in the deep south of America during the 1930's. Really good book, just wish I could remember the name of it.

I know you said 'burning' was in the title, but maybe it was 'Roll of Thunder hear my cry' or its sequel?

I used to read my mother's mother and baby magazines and started reading the Childcraft encyclopaedias when I was 4. I remember in one of the stories there was a boy who was 6 and I remember thinking he was so much older than me :pac:

raah!

I think mine was the iron giant.. or the iron man or something. It was in 2nd class anyway, and near the end the giant saved someplace or other from a dragon.

The giant said the dragon could breath fire on him if the dragon flew into the sun.. whoever could withstand it won the competition. The giant won. I'll look that up I guess.

There could have been others but they were probably too crap to remember

Ian C

Did "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" have pictures? I read that when I was 4, I think.

mkaobrih

[FONT=&quot]Nancy Drew 7 book box set – when I was 13 years old - at first I thought it was a crap present but when I started reading it - it was the best present ever.[/FONT]

not bakunin

"The Twits", that slice of infantile brilliance from the one and only Roald Dahl. I remember being ever so proud at reading it myself, and I distinctly remember the irrational fear which would grip me every time I put the book down. Would I ever find where i was again? This led to me carrying a small purple marker around with the book, and when i needed to stop, i would underline the exact word which i had stopped at. I then progressed onto the "Swallows and Amazons" series by Arthur Ransome, and I was away with it from there.....


Finishing reading in mid-sentence, good times, good times.

This_Years_Love

It was The Witches by Roald Dahl when I was in 2nd class so I was about 7 or 8.

Linguo

Famous five and the secret seven books and goosebumps books, there were brilliant!!

giddybootz

Roald Dahl books and Narnia

Still read them to this day!! They are my comfort food of the book world!

ally2

giddybootz wrote: »

Roald Dahl books and Narnia

Narnia is still amazing to read. I read it to my 4-year old and we are both hooked wondering what will happen next. I thought it would be too old for him but it's amazing how kids visualise exactly what is happening when you read to them.

giddybootz

Yeah I was very young when my Aunt first read them to me and I loved them...I think it was the talking animals that first sold them to me!! Even to this day I am waiting for a badger, beaver or lion to chat to me!!

BossArky

Mine was about a rabbit. Further detail has vanished into the fog of memory.

ally2

BossArky wrote: »

Mine was about a rabbit. Further detail has vanished into the fog of memory.

Watership Down? Peter Rabbit?

Anthem

I'm not sure. Remember reading Narnia in senior infants or so, then Harry Potter in first class

Very first might've been Nancy Drew or Babysitters Club though...

-Els-

I remember my first "chapter book" as I called it then was "the secret island" by enid blyton... loved it, can still remember most of it to this day!

sceptre

ally2 wrote: »

By first 'big' book,I mean the first time you remember reading a book with no pics, pure text, small font and getting hooked.

My first was a Famous Five.

Same here. Five on a treasure island, in 1980 at a guess (I would have been five, I half-doubt it would have been handed to me when I was four, although given that my parents always assumed I'd grow into shoes, they probably did that with books as well). It was the TV tie-in issue (series started in '78) but of course RTE being RTE, they didn't show the series till about 1984ish when I was finished all of the books, had tried some of the translated French ones and had sod-all interest in watching the series.

It was definitely bought in that little shop next to where the jaunting cars congregate on what used to be the way into Killarney, the one joined on to that little hotel that sold the most awful sausages. Doubt any of it is still there (I haven't been in Killarney in years) - it's exactly the kind of thing that would be swept away by the arrival of tourists with money and a modicum of taste.

Oddly enough these days I've little regard for Enid Blyton except for the Faraway Tree books (which my sister read, I used to nick them for half an hour). The PC cleansing they underwent in the 80s probably doesn't help. But when it comes down to it, fun and all as it was when I was little to find out what the little Kirrin kids were up to given that their preferred holidaying location of Polseath was full, even as a five or six year old, it struck me as odd that those kids spent 21 books on holidays. And they really weren't very well written, even if the first one taught me what an ingot was (incidentally, it's been 30 years and that's the first time I've needed to use the word "ingot"). Peter Rabbit on the other hand (lots of pictures, doesn't count), which I read before Blyton, now that I can still dig. Somewhere buried in my middle room I have a Peter Rabbit bowl, plate, eggcup and cup, must dig those out.

Ah, nostalgia, when I do it I always picture me doing it like this. Warning: not a book. These days you can pull videos from my cold dead hands.

edit: ooh, actually, thinking about it, I lie (to be fair, it's been 30 years and my memory genuinely isn't what it was last year). My aunt left a copy of The Valley of Adventure in the house. It was falling apart. I read that before being given the Famous Five one. Of the Adventure series books that I read, I probably liked it the least. Probably why I didn't finish the series, I only read the first four or five.

we'llallhavetea_old

Mine was 'the magic finger', in first class, so about seven years old. This kickstarted my roald dahl obsession, which i've passed on to my five year old! Its great, i get to read them all over again!

Fugly

Hmm. Love Roald Dahl but seeing as they're illustrated. I'll exclude them. I didn't really read children's lit when I was under 11. I was a marathon reader so only read "grown up" books, I judged on the thickness {more impressive, Yes I was that child}. So in my house that meant law books/politics/history/war. I adored reading about hitler, . There was an incident in a book store where I threw a tantrum as I wanted this super thick book on hitler (Alan Bullock). I distinctly remember my mother turning bright red dragging me out as I screamed "but I love Hitler" while she just kept repeating "no dear you're interested in Hitler"

Aw youth full ingnorance :rolleyes::o:o

My first book I remember reading fully was Jeffery Archer, As the crow flies. I was around eight stuck in my grandparents home. I still love this book.

-Els-

Came accross this the other day:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/how-to-ration-ginger-beer-and-other-essential-skills-foradventurers/2006/09/08/1157222326086.html
Any Enid Blyton veterans such as myself might enjoy it:)

ally2

even as a five or six year old, it struck me as odd that those kids spent 21 books on holidays. And they really weren't very well written, even if the first one taught me what an ingot was (incidentally, it's been 30 years and that's the first time I've needed to use the word "ingot").

I think there was a 'Blyton ban' in the 80s because it was felt her books weren't literary enough? Although I doubt I appreciated that much as a kid. I think she knew how to capture kids' imagination with stories about freedom and adventure. I read an article recently on the PC police altering her books - queer has been replaced with odd and gay has been replaced by happy. Apparently biscuits have been replaced by cookies to appeal to an American audience.

p to the e

Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson when i was about seven. after that came the secret seven by Enid Blyton

holmyster

harry potter!!!!

TedB

Mine was a famous five story. I don't remember anything other than something to do with the 'gang' looking down an old well or something. Its like mist or something at this stage to me.

giddybootz

BossArky wrote: »

Mine was about a rabbit. Further detail has vanished into the fog of memory.

Was it The Velvatine Rabbit? My favourite kids story of all time..soooo good and sooo sad! It's the first story I rtemember being read as a little one!!

oncevotedff

ally2 wrote: »

Anyone else remember their first 'big' kids book?

One of the Secret Seven books.