What was your first 'proper book'??

[Lioness_Heart]

What was the first proper book that you read as a child?

Not necessarily great literature, but the step up form Topsy and Tim or Janet and John that made you think that reading was what you loved most in the world.

And why that book?

Mine was Five have plenty of fun by Enid Blyton when I was 5. We were going to see the stage production of the famous five at the Oxford Playhouse, so mum bought me the book as our bedtime reading. The familiar story then followed with me picking it up and turning my lights back on to read ahead... and I was captivated; I've loved books ever since. Although my Famous Five phase lasted for a while, thankfully I have moved on somewhat.

So what about you?

[Dori]

Legends of King Arthur by Janyce L. Minnton

[Julian Koller]

Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

[Aeltya]

What was the first proper book that you read as a child?

The Black Stallion by Walter Farley

[loggats]

I've been told that my first 'proper book' was the Little Prince, but I most remember Peter Rabbit and Alice. We read along with our parents, so it's difficult to remember when I started reading alone.

I do remember that the first book I ever brought home from the school library was Swallows and Amazons. The dog tore it to shreds.

[amalia1985]

It was "Jamaica Inn", my mother's all-time favourite book. She gave it to me in my 12th birthday.

[manolia]

My first proper book was Antigone i think or Aristophanes' "The frogs". I was about 11 years old.

[Nossa]

The Return of the Spirit by an Egyptian writer called Tawfiq Al-Hakim...I was 11 or 12 can't really remember!

[amanda_isabel]

i think it was freckle juice, by judy blume..or one of those babysitters club books.

[jon1jt]

Call of the Wild by Jack London. I think I was eight, maybe ten, I don't remember, I was very young. I read it once wearing my winter coat on in the house, and my mother came into my room to ask me why I was wearing it--it was one of those jackets with the fur around the hood. I told her that I was cold, but the truth is I was too embarrassed to tell her that I was living in that novel.

[kratsayra]

Call of the Wild by Jack London. I think I was eight, maybe ten, I don't remember, I was very young. I read it once wearing my winter coat on in the house, and my mother came into my room to ask me why I was wearing it--it was one of those jackets with the fur around the hood. I told her that I was cold, but the truth is I was too embarrassed to tell her that I was living in that novel.

That is adorable Jon!!

I think my first "chapter book" (which is how I interpreted the question) was Stuart Little. And I read most of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books too. Those were the first books that I really sat down and read at length on my own.

[Bakiryu]

My father taught me to read with Gulliver's Travels and Ronia, daughter of the bandits. The spanish translations.

[capek]

I read a ton of the Piers Anthony Xanth books starting when I was ten or so. Fun stuff, even though I'm sure I didn't get half the puns that were the mainstay of that series.

[Pensive]

I started reading Urdu afsaanas (stories of relations, family problems or love stories) from quite an early age, let's say from Grade 2 or Grade 3. Oh and I also used to read suspense Urdu novels. And from Grade 3 or Grade 4 got interested in Enid Blyton's Secret Seven and Famous Five series.

[Oniw17]

The first real novel I read was the first Harry Potter in third grade. The first novel that I read and liked was about a Jewish girl in WWII(not Anne Frank), a year later; sadly, I can't remember it's name. I didn't decide that I really liked reading until relatively recently, and it was reading a Napoleon biography, not a novel. I really liked the feeling my brain got while I was reading Felix Markham's biography of Napoleon, I don't think there was anything particualy significant about the book though, I just decided that I liked reading while I read it.