Monday, May 18, 2009

Musing Mondays-- Childhood Reading


Do you remember how you developed a love for reading? Was it from a particular person, or person(s)? Do you remember any books that you read, or were read to you, as a young child?

I have a weekly feature here on Kittling: Books called Saturday Soliloquy. In it, I've talked a lot about how my love of reading was formed very early on by my mother and grandmother. I've shown and talked about books they gave me and how those books laid the foundations of lifelong passions and pursuits.

I know that my mother read to me all the time when I was a baby. I still have many of those books. The first clear memory I have of anything is of watching my mother while she read a book for her own pleasure. I remember thinking that she looked as though she was having so much fun sitting in the circle of lamplight holding that big grown-up book. The first wish I ever made was: I want to learn to read!

I began pestering her unmercifully until, around the age of three, Mom began teaching me the alphabet. I still remember the first three books I read all by myself: Artie the Smartie, about a young whale who didn't like to pay attention to his parents; Hurry Up, Slowpoke! about a young mouse who liked to dawdle; and Sylvester the Mouse With the Musical Ear about another mouse who lived in a Stradivarius violin. It didn't take me long to get those skinny books tamed, and I was on to Thornton Burgess. Then Marguerite Henry, Walter Farley, the Hardy Boys, the Bobbsey Twins...and on to Grown-Up Books!

Now I have a blog where I get to run off the mouth about books all the time, and I'm hoping you'll share your earliest memories of reading with us!

I thought I'd throw this in. Some of you may recognize it as the graphic for my Saturday Soliloquy posts. It's of me, aged about two, "reading" on my grandparents' front porch. My grandmother is sitting next to me. Photographic proof that the printed page has always fascinated me!

I want to say a big Thank You to Rebecca of Just One More Page for hosting this meme. If you'd like to join us, or if you'd just like to read more responses, click on the Musing Mondays graphic at the top of this post.



8 comments:

  1. What a sweet photo! My reading didn't take off till I was in my teens.

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  2. I love that picture...lol
    I have no memory of what I was reading..but I have no memory of not reading either.

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  3. Oh yes! Now I remember the story about the mouse in the violin! Love the picture.

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  4. What a cute picture!
    I can remember wishing to learn how to read also. Oh these memories keep flooding back :)
    Here is my musing

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  5. Zetor--Thanks for stopping by! Not until your teens? You're reading now, and that's all that matters!

    Caite--I look so serious about it, don't I? Doesn't make a bit of difference that I'm holding it upside down! LOL

    Nise--For some reason, I've never been able to forget that mouse!

    Belle--What can I say? I was an adorable little'un! ;)

    Jenny--I'll have to get over to your blog and check out your answer!

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  6. Mum said I could read before I went to school. I remember Little Golden Books, and one about a lost doll, and Pookie Puts the World Right, and Bambi. The lady next door let me borrow her daughter's Milly Molly Mandy books, and Enid Blyton books. I remember the excitement of visiting her, the lemony smell of her house (except when she was cooking tripe - ugh!), and that there was a little nook near the bookshelves where I would perch and lose myself for hours.

    I also remember my school readers with great affection! We had The Open Road and Travelling On in the Infants. I think we basically read aloud around the room, a far cry from today's lessons. But I loved those little stories. There was one about two raindrops called Pitter and Patter, and another about a girl with a chinese umbrella, and I can see the illustrations still in my mind.

    I also remember that I would day dream a lot and fuel my dreams from the books I read. And of course, I would take those dreams outside to where we kids played, and they would drive our games, too.

    Ahh...enough nostalgia. I have books to review. But I am so very pleased that my early love of reading has turned into a full-blown obsession!

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  7. Susan--Thanks so much for sharing that with us! Books fueled my daydreams and inspired many games with neighborhood children, too.

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