Welcome to #Checkin for Saturday, April 2nd, 2022!

Favorite book as a kid? Hard to name just one, as I was a voracious reader. I did just realize that my granddaughter, who just turned 9, is now old enough for some of the easier classics recommended for ages 9-12, so, when I visit tomorrow, she is getting 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (my childhood favorite) and Alice in Wonderland, another favorite. Got to give her alternatives to reading books about Minecraft!

I personally don't recall a "favorite book" as a young child, but certainly remember being a big fan of Batman and Superman comics in the late 60s. 😀

Historical reading has always been my favorite genre -- I read the Illiad and The Odyssey in junior high and it set my mind on fire.

Don't recall a particular favorite book. I read as many of them as I could get my hands on.

But, if you were on Plus, you might have "met" Paul Stickland, who does pop-up books. I did end up buying one for my nephew some years ago.

Pretty much everything with the atom sticker on the spine (i.e. skiffy) in the children's section of the town library.

But maybe you also had a favorite book as a kid?

Terry Pratchett's "Reaper Man"

I was a reader of lots of things as a kid...I flew thru books, especially fiction. Our local branch library was small and they had to let me have access to the "adult" areas very quickly as I was done with kids books by about about age 10 (I could manage 3 or more books in a week, and flew through things like the Hardy Boys books). Part of the problem was their children's collection was rather small, and I didn't care for "picture" books when I was on the younger side... and there wasn't really a "Young Adult" category back then... and the branch library was used by the big library across town as an extension of their stacks really... So I went from reading Hardy Boys to Isaac Asimov and Perry Mason and Agatha Christie.

So no specific book in there... just lots of them.

I think I was granted library adult section access just as soon as I had any interest in grown-up material.

Yea, I read too many library books to have one favorite. I recall being captivated by a series of books involving an alien crash landing on earth in his ship and befriending a human boy. The alien was of similar stature so he was able to pass as a strange sounding human boy and the two had all kinds of fun together.

Yeah, the librarians at my local branch essentially let me read whatever the heck I wanted. Once, they even let me leave without checking out my giant stack of books!

(I pedaled all the way back once I realized).

This is next up on my reading list: A fresh take on why Octavian won the war against Antony and Cleopatra

I was the kid who checked out the limit of 5 books from the library every single week during summer break - and my mom, who later became a school librarian after getting her degree, was happy to take my brother and I to the library. By the time I was in high school, my after-school and Saturday job as a "page" at the library began in the children's level, where I began with shelving books, working my way up to checking them out and doing reference. Eventually, I moved up to the adult library, but I loved my early years watching kids gather up their special books to borrow.

Only 5?!? Oy!

I learned to read pretty early. I credit my parents reading the Seuss and other 'early reader ' books to me. In kindergarten I was placed in 1st and then 2nd grade reading programs.
Teachers reading to the class was a real treat. Charlotte's Web, Amos Fortune, Free Man, 'Where the Wild things Are', pure bliss as a kid.
TV access was limited, so outdoors play and reading were early time killers.
I spent a lot of time in the elementary school library looking for books and I think the librarian noticed and opened access to stuff that was 'above my level' as an encouragement.
Non fiction was the reading choice early on. In the 60's there was a series of booklets published by the US Atomic Energy commission called 'Understanding the Atom'. The library had some and I ate them up. You could request 1 or 2 copies for free and I started ordering them. It seems that they noticed and one day a big box showed up at the house with the whole series. Kiddo heaven.
I skipped from dinosaurs and American Indians to reactors pretty quick. I was eating up 'Tom Swift' series books, no Hardy Boys for me.
After a while my mom became concerned and got me a library card for the public library and introduced me to kids science fiction books. Soon ate through those and started in on the YA sci fi.
Reading was a Huge part of my childhood. I grieve for the kids now, for whom reading is a chore, and perhaps who's parents choose to hand off the chore of reading to others, or to the TV or an app.

My school library eventually decided not to bother checking books out for me as I would bring them all back the next day and check out more. They decided it was easier to just give me unlimited access. After a couple of years I had read every fiction book in the library.

I read series more than specific books when I was under 10. Trixie Belden, Tom Swift, Lensmen series, Navy Drew. Another library lover here.

I read many books as a kid and soon started to read "adult" books, e..g not targeted for a specific age. I read also these thrillers from my father.

@Jodi K Yeah, inevitably I was done reading all of them by mid-week, but that was the limit.

@stefani banerian I loved astronomy books and learned about exponents from them.

Oh, sheesh, cannot even list all the books I read as a kid....some exceptions are 'Wrinkle in Time'....'Children of Morrow'.....most Anne McCaffrey books, d'aulaires book of greek myths, nearly all Andre Norton, Ray Bradbury, Patricia McKillip, Robert Heinlein, and later Frank Herbert. Remember shocking my 6th grade teacher as I was reading a book on the Iliad & the Odyssey for fun....

Gray, overcast, hot and MUGGY here today. More rain coming, supposedly.

Favorite childhood books? I had many! Hell, I probably still have them around here somewhere. I'm a book hoarder. 🙁

I had a huge set of books maybe 24 volumes I can recall ATM, of Childcraft books...I read them all and they went from nursery rhymes to about the 6th grade stories. I also read what I liked in the school libraries, whatever was on the parents book shelf-mostly Sci fi, classics and poetry. I did not read traditional children's fare until I was old undecided I needed to read Anne of Green Gables Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Heidi stuff like that and I really enjoyed it then too. Parents read....and like @Mark Wollschlager I really feel so sorry for children who find reading a chore. When my Daisy was working for me she had a little boy and the first year I knew her and him I subscribed to Hi-lights for children( I think there was a younger version I started him out with...this year he is 12 or 13 so I found another age appropriate magazine for him....he was so thrilled to get mail and was the BMOC since he got such a wonderful magazine every month! I never missed a year from kindergarten to now to provide him with something to read.

@Nora Qudus That's great. I have been providing books for my granddaughter since she was old enough to sit up and turn pages. Did the same with my own kids. The reward - a child who loves to read, does well in school and is happy to get new books.

I was a book hound when I was a kid. Everything from The Hardy Boys to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I read everything. The earliest book I can remember was about some kids at a summer camp called Camp Pottawatomie. I've tried to find the title of that book but have not ever been successful.

One of my earlier books was "Sailing Alone Around the World" by Joshua Slocum - I still have my 1899 edition.

Back in middle school I read things like Lindbergh's book ("Spirit of St. Louis") about flying across the Atlantic - I lost it and had to buy a new copy for the school library.

And I remember also in middle school reading, of all things, Advise and Consent - and coming across a new word "juxtaposition". Before I had finished the sentence into which that word was embedded I read that sentence to a girl next to me :".... the juxtaposition of Little Miss Roll Me Over and Do Me Again with ..." Oops, she turned quite red.

The list of books that I started and never finished is long, beginning with getting to page 54 of Ulysses, memorizing the last/first sentence of Finnegan's Wake, Gravity's Rainbow, the Bible...

The brain cells are starting to play back old memories I've stored away.
"My Side Of The Mountain" - I thought that one was pretty cool.
I buzzed through CS Lewis' Narnia series in 5th-6th grade. I thought those were pretty cool until the last where Lewis just started cribbing parts from the NT which, even today knowing the context and meaning behind them, I think are mediocre and sad (charitably) attempts at allegory.

I think my first book was Dick and Jane.

See Puff.
See Spot.
See Spot run.

I was more into superhero comic books - Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Flash, etc.
I got into space exploration after that. I remember being in the hospital when I was nine having my appendix removed. My uncle brought me a book showing the early idea for a space station, and showing the planets in the solar system.
I went into an interest in different religions as a young man, just to see if I could figure out why different people believed different things. Maybe I was searching for answers.

My folks had the Encyclopedia Britannica (1967 ), (door to door sales as I recall). Along with one of the Time/Life World Library series ( monthly sub ) and a Audubon Nature encyclopedia set. I read them all front to back many times. That was my internet, along with World Almanac's ( for christmas )

At age 4 after my parents' divorce, I was sent to live with my grandparents , where I spent hours before I could even read looking through the Encyclopedia Britannica Junior set (1940's version) that my mom and uncle had used. As I learned to read, I was reading that and the Britannica yearbooks along with books way beyond my reading level, such as the original Bambi, Last of the Mohicans and Andersen's Fairy Tales (with the very scary Arthur Szyk illustrations... which gave me major nightmares.) So, maybe that book qualifies as the book I most loved to hate.

I was a voracious reader. Still would be, if I had time. As it is, I rarely go to bed without reading at least a little bit. My favorite authors have varied over the years, nor could I point to any ONE book as a favorite.

As a young kid (under 10) I loved Enid Blyton's books. My sisters and I collected practically every book she wrote. A favourite pastime was going to the library and borrowing as many books as we could carry. That library did not seem to have limits to the number that one could borrow (or our arms were short.) We regarded reading as a kids' activity, like climbing trees. Actually we often took books up our favourite trees and read them while curled up in the branches. It's hard to believe but I actually read Tolstoy's War and Peace, cover to cover before I was 12. I don't recall my parents ever restricting us from reading anything - I'm not sure how but they influenced us to have discerning minds early. 😂

Oh yes, Enid Blyton!

Ah, My Side of the Mountain, a book that fed much of my young fantasy life.

I remember seeing the film adaptation of My Side of the Mountain, for some reason it was a CCD ( Catholic kids ) sponsored trip.
Cool story.

Oh! I forgot about my grandparents' series, "The Book of Knowledge". I remember pouring over those books as a kid. Every one showed how to do a magic trick.
My brother has that set now. I have National Geographics going back to 1937. Kind of neat going back to my birth month to see what was happening then.

From Tiger Flower by Fleur Cowles

Mansa Musa: The Lion of Mali by Kephra Burns

From The Rainbow Goblins by Ul de Rico. You may know his name from being the artistic director for the movie. The Neverending Story .

Do I collect children's picture books...yes, yes I do!

I also have a collection of childrens'' picture books. (Well, hardly a real collection - one shelf.)