Do you remember the first book you read? And do you still have it?

[vanye]

Most of us will agree that our first love is special and I'm sure that most of us remember ours. In my personal experience, our first love even has a huge influence over relationships to come.

But just between us lovers of books: Don't you also remember the first "real" book you read? And wasn't it even way earlier than first love?

Is there a story about your first book that you can tell? I want to hear it!

How did you learn to read? What did learning to read mean to you? Did it change your life?

Do tell!

Here's my story:

From a very early age I loved my mother reading to me. It probably developed into a bit of a chore for her over the years, but my mother was up to the challenge.

The older I got, the more I wanted to read those stories myself. So I asked my mother to teach me how to read. However, she adamantly refused. You see, she worried that she might do something wrong and somehow ruin the learning process for me.

It was also a great – if unintended – trick to make me want to go to school. From that day on I couldn't wait to start school and finally learn how to read.

The proper age to start school would have been at 6 years. In my case, though, that was not to be. I got sick and needed surgery. To make matters worse, the clinic was far from my hometown, so my parents could only come and visit me on the weekends. Most vexing, I would have to stay for several weeks.

The surgery went very well (I'm still grateful to those surgeons who did an outstanding job so many years ago!), but there I was: Lots of time on my hands and I couldn't read. Let me tell you, I was bored out of my skull! (And truth be told, I missed my parents terribly.)

So, all went well and I could start school. But here comes the catch: I'd have to go to that very same hospital again a year later to check if everything was alright.

Thus I was looking at another bout of boredom and misery and I wasn't having it. I WOULD be able to read by then!

What can I say? I made it!

I had my very first book with me when I went to that hospital again a year later. Having it there and being able to read it changed my entire world. From today's perspective it seems that I fell into a book and never really came out again. But that is probably an experience most of us on this site share.

The book I had with me in that hospital was "Robin Hood", by Howard Pyle (a German translation, obviously). And though all this happened half a century ago, I still have the very same book.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

The earliest book I can recall is this one, a picture book for very early readers. As the cover implies, it's a comedy about a ball that goes bouncing all over the place. I certainly don't still have it.

 

[nixie]

My brother taught me to read at three. I vaguely remember starting on Dr Seuss then moving onto Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree.
When I started school the teacher was at a complete loss, she had no idea what to do with me within a couple of days she took away the ABC books and gave me the Peter and Jane books.
By contrast my son had me worried he didn't show any interest in reading and would come home with same book for months. I raised it with his teacher she said I was worrying unnecessary; he could obviously read as he could follow reading prompts and video games instructions, said leave him to it.
I resorted to bribery. He wanted a game based on the colour of magic for mega drive. I agreed if he started reading he could have it for his seventh birthday.

 

[beccabear67]

There were books and comics I remember looking at before I could read. The earliest things I can remember, though they may have been read to me rather than my actually reading them by myself, are a big book of animal art with poems and a little book of the Sesame Street Sherlock Holmes style muppet and some doodlebugs. I did see the big animals book some time ago and it should still be around someplace.

I remember once I could read looking back at some older comic books and thinking the story I'd imagined seemed much better than the one written out in it's captions and word balloons! Except my older brother's Deadman comic which I still couldn't figure out how to read (very busy Neal Adams art with not simple panels), but it scared me and I was a bit afraid of it (so it stayed separate from my simpler/happier comics).

 

[smellincoffee]

Can't possibly remember the very first kiddie/learning book, but the first real book I remember reading was The Call of the Wild, by Jack London. I received the Great Illustrated Classics edition of it for Christmas. I think was nine or so. I don't have that edition of the book anymore, but I do have the full adult version of the book as well as a few other London titles on the shelves.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I had morning is a little child - a poetry book I read all the time with my mum. And yes, I still have it

 

[beccabear67]

My brother had Call Of The Wild and others in that sort of Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew series style of hardcovers for young readers.

Here's the first book I read for myself, a gift from a babysitter. Like the illustrated poems one it was large but also much thicker. Also think this is probably still around someplace.

 

[Matteo]

If it counts, then it was probably What Do People Do All Day? by Richard Scarry which I loved. I still have it, but it's in the attic. Otherwise, it might well have been the hardback Noddy books (do they count?) which are also in the attic. Or, for the first "proper" book, I think it was this Christmas stocking present when I was six.

 

[Peppa]

My brother taught me to read at three. I vaguely remember starting on Dr Seuss then moving onto Enid Blyton's Faraway Tree.
When I started school the teacher was at a complete loss, she had no idea what to do with me within a couple of days she took away the ABC books and gave me the Peter and Jane books.
By contrast my son had me worried he didn't show any interest in reading and would come home with same book for months. I raised it with his teacher she said I was worrying unnecessary; he could obviously read as he could follow reading prompts and video games instructions, said leave him to it.
I resorted to bribery. He wanted a game based on the colour of magic for mega drive. I agreed if he started reading he could have it for his seventh birthday.

Your story is very similar to mine. Like you, I was taught to read at the age of three. But it was my father who taught me to read so early.
What's particularly funny is that he himself was taught to read by his sister (my aunt) when he was also three. She was much older than my father and took care of him when he was a child.

 

[stasymint]

The first book I remember reading was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and yes, I still have it! It's a bit worn and the pages are yellowed, but it's one of those books I could never part with—so many childhood memories tied to it.

 

[CupofJoe]

Books I can remember reading first were probably Can I Keep Him? [1971 Steven Kellogg] and Come over to My House [1966 Theo. LeSieg [aka Dr Seuss] and Richard Erdoes]
Both were lovely gentle picture books [if a bit dated now]
The first mainly text book I can remember reading was The Phantom Tollbooth [1961 Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer]. I can remember trying to workout the riddles and maths.
All three got handed to my nephews while I was at University. I never saw them again.
I have rebought and re-read TPT.
The oldest continuously owned book... Without a doubt The Hobbit [1937 JRR Tolkien]. It was a school library edition [that I may have forgotten to return when I changed schools...]

 

[Harpo]

At infants school I was one Janet & John book ahead of everyone else in my class. That’s what I count as my first book, although I couldn’t specify which one it was.
After that? Might have been a Blue Peter Annual, because Bleep & Booster are a familiar memory. I don’t have any that I had back then, but I do have a couple found in charity shops in recent years.


Possessions are transient, and there’s only one book I have that I bought as long ago as 1986, it’s called Extraordinary People, and on two different occasions I have given it away only to be given it back more than a year later.

 

[farntfar]

The first books that I had at school, to teach me to read, were called Janet and John books. There were several if I remember correctly.

Later, I seem to remember another set about Doctor David and Nurse Susan. Looking on the internet for those gives some comic strip books, which I didn't remember them as, but certainly the drawings ring a bell.

The first real book I can remember reading is Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Janson. But whether I read anything else before, I'm not sure.

 

[JunkMonkey]

First book:

and I still have it.... somewhere...

The next book I remember having was The Favourite Wonder Book; one of those early 20th C hardback compilations of wholesome and uplifting literature for children. This one though had been given to my dad from his parents as a Christmas present in 1942 and contains poetry, stories, and excerpts from novels by authors like Walter de la Mare, Wilde, Tolstoy, Charlotte Bronte, Dickens, A A Milne, E Nesbit, Wordsworth Lord Dunsany... and Karel Kapek!

It's very battered now, There are lose pages, the cover has a white ring on it which I am pretty sure is where either my brother or I carelessly put a pot of Humbrol Enamel paint, there's someone's maths homework working out on the inside of the front cover - not my handwriting; presumably my dad's. the cover is detached, several pages at the ends, front and back are missing. I can't recall whether it was complete when I was given it but I remember I was fascinated by the illustrations.

One of these days I will find another copy in better condition and cannibalise it and restore mine to something more like its former glory. There seem to have been several versions and editions of this book. I think mine is probably a wartime edition (the front matter is missing, so it's hard to tell) it certainly doesn't have the full colour end papers that other editions seem to have.

After that it's all a bit of a blur... but I still have lots of books I bought, or was given (or stole) when I was I was a kid 50+ years ago.

 

[Pyan]

That cover for "The Green-eyed Mouse and the Blue-eyed Mouse" is possibly one of the scariest "children's" book covers I've ever seen...

 

[Robert Zwilling]

I was taught to read before attending school. I still have one of the first books I read by myself, The Busy Little Honey Bee, published in1936. The staples are the original binder, still working. I remember in1st grade, there would be a group of students sitting in the back of the classroom grouped around a big book, 2 feet by 3 feet sitting on an easel. They would read it one word at a time, see spot run.

Written by Josephine Morse True, Illustrations by Jane Gleason

 

[vanye]

The first book I remember reading was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and yes, I still have it! It's a bit worn and the pages are yellowed, but it's one of those books I could never part with—so many childhood memories tied to it.

That’s one of my all-time favourites. I know that Huck Finn is more admired in „literary circles“, but for me it never felt as vibrant as Tom Sawyer.

 

[Parson]

I haven't a title or the book as it was a library book but it was a story about three policemen who are trying to catch some poachers (?) by painting a small submarine to look like a giant fish. When the bad guys catch the "big fish" they think it so lifelike that they run to get something to kill it. Even at 6 or 7 that didn't seem logical to me. But I was very proud of myself to have read a whole book by myself.

 

[Pyan]

Goblin Market is definitely not a children's poem, and Christine Rossetti was extremely clear and vehement about that - it's a prime example of Victorian suppressed eroticism. Just Google the Arthur Rackham illustrations, for example...

 

[Venusian Broon]

I have vague memories of reading a book of some sort in P2 (So that's age five-ish?). Protagonist called Magnus and he had an adventure in Iceland. Unfortunately can't find out what it was called. It's lost in the mists of time.

Scottish primary schools at the time had this really good book club scheme, where you could order books in class - they sent out a new brochure every month or so - and you could get books for ten pence or so. (I'm old )

But one of the first I do have a memory of that I can remember it's title was:

So that probably counts for the OP. But also a huge pile of Commando comic books and this classic <cough> non-fiction one:

This one started me on my Fortean journey. (Although I always had a hard time trying to get past the page with the the three 'real' ghost pictures.*)


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* Now, two of the photos have been debunked, at least to my satisfaction. And the remaining one always looked like a prank.