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Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 24th, 2010, 3:46 am
by Beethovenfan
The summer I turned 13 years old, I wandered into the little library in my podunk home town and randomly chose a book from the shelf that I thought I would like, got myself a library card, and checked out the book. It was Dragon Singer by Anne McAffrey. I fell in love with reading that summer and could not get enough of Anne McAffrey. I began reading everything she had published up to that point. I credit her for inspiring me to love reading.

Does anyone else have an author who became the catalyst in your life to love reading?

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 24th, 2010, 4:09 am
by Lillian Grant
Hmm, I don't remember it was so long ago. I have been reading since before I went to school and would sit buried in a book in preference to watching TV as a kid. I do remember absolutely loving Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 24th, 2010, 5:40 am
by sarahdee
Oh dear...I am English and old enough to remember Enid Blyton so I read all of hers as a child. Also had a load of the Penguin classics. And my prized possession was an old edition of Black Beauty my dad had been given when he was 10.

But really its my mother who is to blame not an author. She was and English Lit student and always had a book in her hand so reading was very encouraged at home. We had a house full of books. I remember aged 11 we had to write a review of a book in school. Mine was The Crysallids by John Wyndham and the teacher didn't believe I had really read it - she actually quizzed me?!!

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 24th, 2010, 10:08 am
by stephmcgee
My dad. Not an author, but the one who got me into reading. He helped me read my very first books. (That I can remember anyways.) Those first two books have always stuck in my memory. I think I was 5 or so at the time.

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 25th, 2010, 12:09 am
by Aimée
I learned to read at the age of four, and I never stopped. I didn't need any inspiration.

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 25th, 2010, 4:01 am
by Beethovenfan
You know, I probably should give my mother some credit too. She always made sure I had plenty of good books around the house. But, I never really LOVED reading until that one summer. You know the kind of love I'm talking about, where you're so completely immersed in a story that the real world around you no longer exists, and you sit for hours in one position with that book until you realize that you're so stiff you can't move!
Thank you everyone for posting your experiences.

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 25th, 2010, 10:29 am
by sierramcconnell
I can't remember a time I didn't know how to read. My mom was a pusher, which meant that we were early in everything. We potty trained early, we walked early, and as soon as the first word came out, we were learning to read and write. So I was reading before I was two according to my baby book. I was also writing my name.

So I honestly can't say what made me want to read, but I always read. We went to the library every other weekend and I couldn't get enough. I made up stories every night in bed to tell me and my sister about families of animals having adventures because I was bored and mom ran out of things to tell us. I went to the school library and read all they had, sometimes twice. There wasn't enough fantasy in the world.

I figured I might fix that by writing my own. After all, when I was three I told everyone I was going to grow up to be a refillable ink pen.

It's an obsession. I'm addicted to books. I had so many at one time that at count there were...500? It was ridiculous. I have culled my collection since then and I focus mostly on research books and things related to my book.

So I guess we can blame this on my mom, the book pusher. She kept on giving me stuff.

And even now she carries books around with her. She was always reading, too. Stephen King and Mary Higgins Clark and people like that. But I don't see how she likes it. She's that woman that at the beginning of a suspense or horror movie she goes, "Oh, I know what's going to happen." And she does. Down to the last plot point.

And now I do that, too. XD

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 25th, 2010, 9:02 pm
by elfspirit
I give my mother full credit. If the kids were bored and it was sunny, she said "Go play outside." If it wasn't, she said "Read a book." We are all book junkies as a result, and three of us have written books.

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 25th, 2010, 9:07 pm
by wetair
My third grade teacher. She read Charlotte's Web out loud to us and I decided I liked it so much that I would go to the library and get a copy to read for myself. There, I discovered lots and lots of other interesting books.

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 25th, 2010, 9:17 pm
by steve
Dolly Parton

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Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 25th, 2010, 9:36 pm
by Leonidas
My Mom taught me to read, but it was when I picked up a book from the Pony Pals series by Jeanne Betancourt in second grade. After I read the first book, I couldn't stop reading and read everything in our classroom.

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 27th, 2010, 2:01 pm
by AnimaDictio
steve wrote:Dolly Parton

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LOL! How inspiring!

My grandmother taught me to read as a baby. I was 3, she says. The books that marked the beginning of my love affair with the written word were those by Dean Koontz.

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 27th, 2010, 9:38 pm
by AnnElise
Easy. J.K. Rowling. Before Harry Potter, I did read but only because I had nothing better to do. Now reading is the better thing. Kudos should also go to my mother, who is a voracious reader, even more than I am

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 28th, 2010, 3:37 pm
by Harper Karcz
The school librarian when I was in the first grade. She told me that I wasn't allowed to check out chapter books or novels, that because I was in first grade I needed to stick to the picture books section because the other books were too hard for me. Being an entirely huffy child, I thought, "I'll show HER!"

That night at home, with my mother's help, I wrote a letter listing all the books I read by myself that year -- most of Beverly Cleary's books, some Nancy Drew mysteries, some Newbery Award books. Both my mom and I signed the letter, and I took it to the librarian the next day. After that, I was able to check out any library book I wanted. And I didn't want to slip up or slack off and give the librarian the satisfaction that I wasn't as serious a reader as I purported to be. So I checked out novel after novel after novel, and read them all. I've been a voracious library user ever since.

Re: Who first inspired you to read?

Posted: August 28th, 2010, 7:26 pm
by craig
I used to dislike reading as a child. Then, in grade six, I was looking in the book section at the grocery store.

"They have Star Trek BOOKS???"

Hooked ever since.

(That particular book was not so great, but it was like a gateway drug into more Star Trek, general sci-fi, thrillers, some horror, and a ton of stuff after that.)