Does The Very Hungry Caterpillar count? if so, then that would be mine. At least that's the first book I ever remember "reading" if you can call it that....
Everything Robert Munsch, Garfield, Babysitter's Club, Sweet Valley High. Calvin & Hobbes was a huge part of my childhood. From there I went onto reading The Call of the Wild and White Fang and became obsessed with reading about dogs/wolves. Then my uncle introduced me to Anne McCaffrey, and I have been reading fantasy almost exclusively ever since.
I remember: Roger Red Hat, Bangers and Mash (not sure if I already liked the food, or if this book helped at all), Elmer (I think this is where my love of all things multicoloured comes from), The Very Hungry Caterpillar, The Tiger Who Came To Tea (my love of tigers, probably), Funny Bones, Goosebumps. First one I read by myself I reckon was either a Roger Red Hat or a Bangers And Mash book. As it turns out, Hope likes The Very Hungry Caterpillar too.
I read early and don't remember not knowing how to read, so...no clue! My cousins were all ten to fifteen years older than me, and I remember bags and bags of used books making the rounds. I do remember the first multi-chapter books I read, though..Black Beauty, which I hate to this day, was one of them. (We boarded horses when I was little.)
I was reading by the time I was 6 I believe. I don't honestly remember. Do comic books count? Because I've been reading Chinese Doraemon comics since I could remember. At around age 6 or 7 I also got into a Chinese RPG game called "The lost seals" and it's got a tonne of dialogue. The whole thing was text-based. It's not a book but I attribute my pretty good Chinese literacy to playing that game, as I'm pretty sure many of the terms and magical spells were way beyond my age level at the time. I definitely read a couple of pictures books, two of which I remember and they were European fairytales. The first was about the bat who switched sides depending on who was winning, an Aesop tale I believe, and the other was the Nutcracker, both written in Chinese with beautiful pictures. I was also reading a lot of "choose your ending" Disney books, also in Chinese. First English book I read - again, I don't remember the title but I know I was reading a collection of bedtime fairytales with intermittent illustrations within a year of arriving in the UK. I was probably 9? By 10 I was reading the Animal Ark series, which I found in the book fair at school and it was then I properly got into reading. ETA: Picture books. Actually maybe they weren't picture books. Like, it was a page of illustration next to a full page of text. Not like a sentence or two on each page but this was proper Chinese narrative.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (in Spanish) In English... probably some adaptation of a novel for beginners at school. But the first real book would be The Great Gatsby.
I cannot remember the first book I ever read but I can remember the first non-children’s book - Tarzan of the Apes. That lead me to more reading, from classics to moderns, to science fiction, fantasy, mysteries, westerns and romances.
Far far far to long ago to remember. However, aside from Peter and Jane books, which is more about learning to read than actual reading, it was 'probably' the Magic Faraway Tree.
Little Bear (Golden Book?) was the first book I read to my Mom, except I didn't know I was doing it. I was pre-K and she was reading too slow that day, so I just helped the story along. I was the 'what's this word, Mommy?' kid, incessantly, after that. Up to that point, I was considered physically and mentally retarded. I started getting asked if I could read this and could I read that - so I read absolutely everything; soup cans, box labels, street signs (Mom had bad night vision), billboards, tech manuals, newspapers... The earliest actual story I recall the title of was The Furious Flycycle. It was about a kid who decided to become an inventor.
I don't remember, since I have read many books over the years. I can kinda remember Jaws 2 at 7. IDK, like I said there have been many many books.
My earliest memories are of the Cat in the Hat books. There may have been some before that, but I can't recall them.
Tison's and Taylor's Barbapapa, I think. They were more like graphic comic book style books than books and the shapeshifter characters always intrigued me. So much so they've eeked their way into my writing. My short story - Sticky Things is like a horror version of them and the idea has crept into other stories my House of Cadre novel that I haven't finished and MoonGrubs.
My first book was a picture book? Actually I do not remember the first real book I read. I remember reading a book that a kid was wondering what a new pet was or was it he was visiting someone else and wondering what their pet was. Spoiler the animal was a cat
My first actual novel I finished was Treasure Island, I believe. Maybe I completed a bunch of the old Goosebumbs books before it, but they're a little too small to count I think.
I'm going to skip right to the first 'adult' book I read, and it was Iain Bank's The Wasp Factory. Not that Mr Banks would thank me for saying this, but I still think it's his best novel.
I remember reading the Volland edition of Mother Goose, when I was very very small. I'd had it read to me many times, and obviously 'learned' the rhymes. But I do remember sounding out the words until I could read them by myself. Which not only gave me a love of reading AND stories, but also of lavish Edwardian-era illustrations. As a treat to myself in my 70th year, I just ordered a used copy of this book from Amazon. I'm hoping it's the 'same.' Looks like it, anyway. My gosh, these take me back to how much I loved that book and the fat old wives. My own edition is long gone.
Hi there jannert these little captions are rather eye opening quite fetching in a way. The graphics are well executed however I am not sure about the the first one. It is rather ''gruesome'' would you say?? haha.
As a child, I remember being extremely concerned about the cat, which seemed fairly undernourished. The domestic detail in these illustrations, whether they were set indoors or outdoors, was what really made them work for me. This was truly the golden age of children's book illustration.
I read first ever book is manga book and I like to read ane naru mono manga at mangazuki raws because well, who wouldn't?. This is my favorite.
