What got you interested in reading?

Maybe this question has already been asked before but I'm curious as to how you people got interested in reading books. Did your parents read and did you grew up in a reading environment or did you discover the world of books all by yourself and if so, how?

As for myself, neither of my parents read whereas I am getting more and more obsessed with books each year so I don't really know who I got it from. I was very good with language from a very early age and I remember getting an applause from my teacher when I was in the 1st grade of primary school because I could already read the books from the 6st grade. I also remember that my parents read fairy tales to me when I was little so I did get some stimulation from home. At primary school, every grade also went to the library once every two weeks and we could borrow a book in case we finished a task earlier than the rest of the class. I also went to the library on my own and I got a lot of comic book series and children encyclopedia from my granddad.

I sometimes wish my parents would read a bit more and that we could enjoy more tv-free evenings. I like staying downstairs with my family, especially in the evening because it's warmer and cosier there than at my room but I need silence to be able to concentrate on my reading and my parents are usually watching tv although my dad keeps complaining there's nothing to see :D.
I recently started using earplugs in an effort to keep most of the sounds out and still being able to read downstairs :p

Anyway, time to share your stories!

Books. Books got me interested in reading. Seriously - what else? I have to thank my parents for having some good books about the house that were enjoyable to read - and were a bit of a stretch for me, so I learned to read *books* - not *picture books* at a VERY early age (they had, for whatever reasons, a lot of books at the 4th-7th grade level, so I quickly jumped to tackling those, vs. hanging out with Dr. Seuss, etc.)

My grandmother always made sure that Books were available

My parents read to me and my siblings. Plus there were always book about, and books were always (as far as I can recall) given for gifts at Christmas and birthdays, and we haunted the library.

And I was kind of an introverted kid, and what friends I had were also readers.

Books everywhere. Old books, new books, short stories, nonfiction, Childcraft...

I never really got read to either (other than at bedtime) - if I wanted a story, I had to get off my duff and go read it to myself.

I also was never read to.

My parents never read much other than the newspaper, but my grandmother read. I don't remember any particular event or person that got me interesting in reading. I've always loved books and loved reading from a young age. I do remember begging my grandmother to read Wynken, Blynken, and Nod to me when I spent the night with her. I can still see the boat (a shoe, I believe) and the moon in the pictures. She is the only person I ever remember reading to me.

I read to my children from the day they were born, and even read aloud before they were born. People laughed at me, but very few of my friends at that time were readers.

This question is so vital I have put it on my profile page. I loved books as soon as I knew them, and ever since. They were the family religion.

For Georgia:

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe---
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.

>10 stellarexplorer: Oh yes!

As tardis said, there were always books around our house. We were read to, given books, and taken to the library, and had the good example of parents who read a lot as well. I had the added advantage of an older sister who read and recommended books to me. I think we passed a lot of books back and forth then, and still do.

#9 - Aw, thanks MerryMary! I love that poem and hope to read it to my grandchildren one day.

I don't remember my parents reading to me or my sisters, but my mom tells the story that one of us (she can't remember which one; there were 4 of us) asked her to read us a book, and she was busy and said to go ask our father to read it. The child asked in amazement, "Can Daddy read?"; so Dad had to read to us to prove he could read; lol. All I ever saw him read was the newspaper; and in later years magazines like Time and National Geographic; Mom says now he'll occasionally read a western. My mom, OTOH, read quite a lot ; though she didn't really read to us, she set a good example, and we went to the library a lot. I suppose one of the main reasons I read a lot as a child, aside from being pretty introverted anyway, was that I had quite a few surgeries done from ages 4 to 11, and was either in the hospital or recuperating from a surgery, so outdoor activities were impossible. Also, we moved a lot (army brat); we lived overseas 3 years. When the choice is watching TV in Japanese, or reading a book in English, the book usually won. Although it was quite entertaining to watch "Bonanza" and "Mission Impossible" dubbed into Japanese. :)

I have mentioned in another thread, how this series of books, The Children's Hour, along with the Tell Me Why series really got me reading. The Tell Me Why series, more than anything, got me liking the sciences, and The Children's Hour got me liking books in general.

It is amazing how just a couple of purchases by parents have such a huge impact, especially considering the fact that my parents did not encourage my use of any of these books. They were purchased, put on the little bookshelf in the room, and left there. I think that made me want to explore them far more than if my parents directed me through them. This is because they were my explorations and discoveries, and nobody else's.

I simply can't remember a time without books. I remember my mom reading to me, never my dad. My grandmother always gave us a spectacularly illustrated book for any gift giving occasion. My mom and dad both read. We used the library, a lot, after I learned to read. We couldn't afford to buy books until I started school and we were able to take advantage of Scholastic.

My Mum took me to the library in the pram at about 3 months! There were always books in the house from the library. Although they both left school early, both my parents read a lot. Within 3 months of arriving at junior school I could read and I never looked back. Our weekly treat was a book for me and a toy car for my brother.
I too am very introverted and I suspect that is one of the biggest indicators of a voracious reader. The extraverts on here will probably now shout but in general I think it's true.
We are so lucky to have access to so much cheap reading material - imagine being born before the invention of the printing press.

My parents always read to us before bed. I still tease my mum about butchering the names in the Hobbit and not being able to keep the dwarves straight. I remember precisely when I started to read for myself. I was about 9 or 10 and we'd gone to see Through the Looking Glass in Stratford, Ontario. We went into a small bookshop and I found a novel about girls who rode horses (I think it was a pony pals book or some such) and I had finished it by the time we had driven home. I haven't stopped reading since.

My mum reads a lot, and my dad owns a lot of books although he never has much time to read. So our house was always full of books growing up. I vaguely remember my mum reading to me at bedtime, but I think that as soon as I could read for myself, I wanted to do so and she stopped reading aloud. My sister and I were taken to the library from a very young age, and I always checked out as many books as I could, and had usually read them all before they were due and wanted to go back sooner!

I was also a shy and introverted child, and loved that books could take me to a world beyond the stress of school and the other kids.

I actually started out as a reluctant reader and for the longest time I wanted books to have illustrations, like this one (just as an example) -



My mum had to force me to read books without pictures in them. The big turning point came when I was perhaps 9 or 10. Dad was reading LoTR for me and it is a hefty set so when he came to Helm's Deep or so I felt a need to check back at the beginning of the story. This lead to me reading first FoTR, slowly, and then, by the time he had reached RoTK, we were even. By then I had started on Heinlein's YA stuff, and Asimov, Clarke and Garner. And a lot of mysteries. LOTS of mysteries. Loved Sherlock Holmes, back then.

This memory MIGHT be skewed by time, of course.

Was I read to? Yes. Mainly by mum. I think LoTR is the only thing dad ever read to me. But he loved the book and thought I was ready for it, and I guess mum wasn't that enthusiastic over the project.

Do my parents have books at home? Well, yes. Both of them were frequently found face down in a book when I grew up and dad worked as an editor and sometime translator and sometime writer at various publishing houses. Their home is stuffed full with books. About ten years ago mum said "no more books" and they haven't looked back since... meaning ever more books has flown into their abode. Sometimes dad incidentally order a book that he already has. He would probably fit right in here ;-)

And oh - why I got interested in books?! The stories! I loved stories, loved being able to go places and see things. I loved, and still love, to experience new things, see new places, learn about different ways to perceive the world.

>19 Busifer:: Moomins!!!! Hooray!

My brother and I were raised in a houseful of grown-ups; books and magazines were all over the place. We read from a very early age, and we read without boundaries. Got library cards (locally you could have a card as soon as you could write your name in ink!) and walked to library alone, taking out its limit each time.

I was surprised when I realized some of my schoolmate friends didn't have books at home.

#22 - I was surprised when I realized some of my schoolmate friends didn't have books at home.
Same here. Not to mention my surprise when I found out there really are adults who didn't read, either...!

#21 - Absolutely. One of my earliest "addictions". I loved the Moomins when I was a kid :)
(Probably one of the reasons I wanted books with illustrations in them, too - Tove Jansson was a gifted illustrator - and as a kid I wanted to be one, too)!

#17 You remind me of when I was 10 and already hooked on reading. Father and I had planned the ultimate adventure holiday, through Southern Rhodesia (as then was) to quite far up in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia, and back via Victoria Falls. But about 2 weeks before takeoff he had to have an emergency appendix operation, and the holiday morphed into a month at Inyanga (now Juliasdale, Zimbabwe). Parents found out that you could get temporary membership of the library at Umtali (now Mutare), about 60 miles / 100 km all on gravel roads from the hotel we were staying in, and that became a regular commute once I found the library had a good collection of Jules Verne books. Parents were not best pleased the day I read the whole of one book in the back of the car on the way back to the hotel.

The card game Authors got me hooked. Did you ever play that game? It's basically "Go Fish" only played with a special deck of cards consisting of 13 authors, each with 4 of their books. I loved to play that game and determined that I would every one of the 52 books in the deck. And I made it -- although it was a struggle: Pendennis, ugh! Now, I not only collect books, but I collect old sets of Authors card games.

I really began reading regularly once i had joined my village library at the age of eight, it was only open on tuesdays and thursdays from 5pm to 7pm and i was there each week religiously and the librarian was a lovely old gent. I have always loved books and when i met my future wife i found a kindred spirit. We have always had books in the house so our children got a love of books but this was not forced upon them and now we have a granddaughter to buy books for.Now i would describe myself as a book addict with well over a thousand books on my shelves to read and have purchased 13 this last week from secondhand and charity shops and have kept a record of my reading since 1/7/96 and this has now reached 610 read by 254 authors, there's no hope for me but i just love books. I also collect books as i enjoy cricket and have over 200 of these and collect the Oxford, Collins and Bodley Head classic pocket books from the 1920 and 30's with the wafer thin pages. My passion is books and books are my passion.

My parents gave me a picture dictionary when I was about 3, and were reading to me a lot. I remember reading a lot of Richard Scarry. Somehow between those, I made the right connections and taught myself how to read.

My parents' house has always been bookful, and most places I visited all had at least one bookcase full of books. It was normal.

For Christmas, just before I turned 5 (I think), I was given The Fantastic Flying Journey, which was the biggest book with the smallest type I'd ever read. I read it with my parents reading it to me, first, and then I read it on my own. I think that book's also responsible for my geography/map addiction.

My parents read to me and my brother pretty routinely until my mother passed away. We were all very young in our respective age brackets (my dad's parents were even a little young to be grandparents), so my brother and I didn't get our stories as often. However, we still saw our dad reading all the time, so we'd pull out our books, mimic him (on the couch, head bent, very still), and read for a while. I remember being six, picking up a book he was currently working through, reading the words, making no sense of them, and putting it back down. The reason I remember this so well is because I wasn't discouraged on not understanding what was going on in the story. I just figured I would understand better when I got a little older.

My parents read to me. I particularly remember my Dad reading Sherlock Holmes to me (hi dad!). Both my parents were, and still are, always reading and our house was full of books. We went to the library a lot, too. It was exciting when I could walk there by myself. I read at an early age and have never stopped. I too am introverted and usually prefer books to people, most ESPECIALLY preferring books to participating in sports (ick).

I only remember my mum really reading to us, she loves all that different-voices-for-the-characters stuff. Both parents have kindles now and the house is still full to bursting of books. Christmas is normally a book-exchange event for the most part- plus the food and wine bit. Tiny local library had a rubbish small selection of books for the youth so you ended up reading adult books. I still remember a book from there that I took out more than a few times. It was a set of short stories about people who'd been in real life accidents. Definitely plane crash and an avalanche. I vividly remember the story about the girl from the plane in a jungle who came too in part of a seat and had a long walk out. Maggots in shoulders, I thought it was fantastic!

My daughter loves books already at 18 months. Every morning after her bottle and in the 15-30 minutes while we are still waking up slowly in bed but she is running round the house at full speed, we get brought one or both of the Beatrix Potter boxes. The box gets emptied out, one book is selected for me, one for papa and she stacks the rest back into the box. Doesn't much hang around for the reading though she knows how to flip through! Another favourite is a Spar sticker book of polar animals. The Mr Men boxset just gets used as a step to climb up and get to places she shouldn't go- have a lovely video on flickr of that... I think she will like the reading bit- when she finally gets around to it.

My mom always read Dr. Seuss. Her favorite was Mr. Brown Can Moo, and we had the book memorized before we could even read ourselves. We had a big closets in our living room and in each there was a shelve of books. One was mainly Dr. Seuss, fairy tales, fables; the other were my mom's biographies and how-to books. There was never a shortage of reading material around.

I think I have to really thank my cousin for pushing me on to chapter books. I don't know why, but I had this crazy fear when I was little to move from the "kiddie" books onto juvenile and young adult. I always did well in reading when I was in elementary school and read above level, but just never took the step into the older kid's section of the library. My cousin was in town one day when we went to the library and she convinced me to pick up a Babysitter's Club Little Sister book --from then on I read anything I could get my hands on. I remember a teacher in 6th grade being upset with me for some reason because I was reading a book we were scheduled to start in class in a few weeks.

My 4 year old loves books now; esp. Dr. Seuss. Even when I'm not reading to her, she will grab a book and make up her own stories based on the pictures. I love it. Now if I could just get the husband to read..hmmm..

>30 C4RO: - C4RO: I read that story about the girl in the jungle too! (I remember the maggots!) That was a cool book. I must have been 11 or so. I wonder what it was called?

I have been surrounded by books and good reading role models since the womb. Mom and Dad both read, and read to us. Both sets of grandparents loved books and had lots of them. I don't remember learning to read - it seems like I always could (although I know that's not possible).

Lots of libraries (my daddy was a railroad man and we moved a lot), lots of classroom books, lots of paperback book club orders. I just seem to have printers ink in my blood and book glue in my bones.

I don't recall much of when I discovered I loved books: I had a difficult time learning to read, and recall struggling with it in first grade.

At some point in the next year or so, I apparently "took off running" and started reading anything that was not being held in someone's hands. I read all my elder sisters' books, no matter what the difficulty, and if a book had a wolf or dog on the cover, I checked it out from the public library.

The public library was my favorite place to be: for my 14th birthday I requested a day trip to the state capitol's library.

I think a lot of us who are/were introverted became voracious readers...we could escape the world around us, losing our daily woes and tribulations in another place and time of our choosing.

My parents always had lots of books around. My dad reads several books a week, and my mom is a librarian. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on the floor in the living room and staring at all the interesting books in the bookcases.

I don't really remember learning to read, but I do remember my first grade teacher being a little put out that I could read already. She thought I had just memorized the Jack and Jane stuff she was trying to teach until I stood at her desk and read something on it out loud. She then asked me, in a kind way, to keep the fact to myself. Huh? I didn't really get it, but wasn't too upset.

My primary school teachers ...and sly old Mr Fox! At reception class (a lifetime away now) there was a book I would cling on to (and hide from the other children). All I remember of it now is that there was a fox on the cover (which looked like a treasure box) and inside there were illustrations of a fox that looked very frightening to me. I have no idea what the story was and I couldn't read it to find out. The fox terrified me and the cover was beautiful at least that's how I remember it. Sly Mr Fox was my nemesis until I learned to read. Our teachers read to us and listened to us read day in and day out.

>10 stellarexplorer: MerryMerry ...Wynken Blynken and Nod, well what can I say. Used to sing that to my now 12 yr old when she was a baby while she was snuggled into what she calls her 'cwchy' (comfort blanket). I'd use the tune from the 'New World Symphony' and if I sing it now she cries. Also bought her a Jim Shore 'Wynken, Blynken and Nod' sculpture ..it's a treasured possession.

My mother is a voracious reader, so there were always books around the house. I remember her sitting me down before I was in kindergarten, teaching me on the old We Look and See series (she was tired of me constantly bringing her books to read to me :) ). I read every night to my boys, even though my oldest is a reluctant reader, and the youngest is still working on forming words, because I want them to have exposure. They did rather enjoy The Hobbit; might have to revisit that now...

There's a story I like to tell about my early experiences with reading, especially when I give talks to parent groups about early literacy:

I lived with my parents and Ann, a graduate student in education who was living with our family. When I was a toddler, I would get a stack of books from my shelf. I would take them to Mom, and she would read all of them to me. Then, I would take them to Dad, and he would read all of them to me. Then, I would take them to Ann, and she would read them to me as many times as I wanted! I also remember, around that time in my life, going to the public library and choosing a pile of picture books almost as tall as I was. I remember the first book I ever read all by myself -- a story about a little raccoon walking to school by himself.

Later, we moved to a small town and the old Carnegie library there had a four-book limit for juvenile cards. It was within walking distance of where my dad worked, so during the summer I would walk there every day for four new books -- I went through the Bobbsey Twins and the Boxcar Children and Trixie Belden and many others that way. I also remember asking for (and receiving) books for every Christmas and birthday. I remember one of my uncles asking me once what I would buy if I had a hundred dollars to spend, and my response then was basically the same as now: books! (I can't remember why he asked me this -- it was certainly not because he was giving me a hundred bucks!)

I remember that my third-grade teacher really liked to find creative ways to encourage her students to enjoy reading, so she had special reading spots all over her classroom -- there were beanbag chairs up in the loft over the cloakroom, and a hanging swing chair, and a big claw-foot bathtub padded with cushions, where each of us sometimes got a chance to read.

Dad also liked to read longer books to us as a family -- A Christmas Carol every year at Christmas, Charlotte's Web and The Hobbit and The Chronicles of Narnia . . . in fact, we still read together as a family when we are all together in one place, though now I like to do some of the reading. We read all of the Harry Potter books aloud together as they came out.

So, basically, I don't remember ever not loving books and reading. I was read to since before I can remember, always surrounded by books and by people who love to read, always given books as gifts, and always encouraged to read, never scolded for spending too much time with my nose in a book. I remember finding dusty treasures of books on my grandparents' bookshelves when we visited their houses, sometimes books that had belonged to my parents or their siblings. I remember reading to my little brother -- he and I now share book recommendations whenever we come across something that the other might enjoy.

Maybe I'm painting too idyllic a picture -- I certainly had some hard times growing up, our family moved around a lot, and school during sixth and seventh grades was absolutely miserable; I was a complete social outcast. However, books were one of the things that helped me through the difficult times.

A four-book limit! Yuck!

#39 -- I know, right? As a children's librarian now, I am kind of appalled.

I dont remember much about what I read when I was in primary school but I was a big reader from fairly young, I know I wanted to be Roald Dahl's Matilda, also remember loving a book called The Wickedest witch in the world (must hunt me down a copy of that book!) & remember getting in trouble for hiding under my doona reading with a torch when I was supposed to be sleeping...

But what really got me fully hooked was a gift voucher for Angus & Robertson that my nan gave me for christmas when I was about 12 (I think!), I remember roaming the bookstore but not finding anything that really interested me until I found the fantasy section, where I fell in love with the cover of David Eddings' The Diamond Throne - & I've hardly been without a book in my hand since & its been 99% fantasy too :) Proves wrong to me the saying that "you cant judge a book by its cover", coz if it wasnt for that pretty purple coverart, who knows when or even if I would have gotten into fantasy & I'm oh so grateful for all the journey's I've been on :)

>36 justmespecialk: - specialk: I too recited Wynken, Blynken and Nod to my baby at bedtime. Night after night after night.

I changed a couple lines ("And the wooden shoe that sailed the seas/Was Mimi's little bed" - Mimi was her nickname). I can still do it with a little thought and hesitation, and "Mimi" is 32 years old!

I don't really remember. I've always read. Both my parents read, and I and my brothers were certainly read to. I know none of us liked water babies but we must have had many others before that. My parents do complain that I loved some story about a clever cow with insulated rubber boots that could touch the electric fence. Samson and delilah? not the bible stories version! This was required reading several times a day for a long while. Both parents claim they could easily recite it without looking at the words. The visit of the mobile library was alway a treat. I had read through the entire primary school reading program before I left infants.Both my brothers were somewaht similar but neither read as much any more.

#39 One of the things that enchanted me when we moved to Durban 8 years ago is that the library limit here is SEVEN print items plus one audiobook plus 2 DVDs/videotapes. Both Johannesburg and Pretoria had a 4-book limit for everybody, and didn't have magazines (Waterfall and Hillcrest have New Scientist, yay!) at all.

(38) foggidawn: "However, books were one of the things that helped me through the difficult times."

Books were my friends, too, when I was miserable about school.