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vcmwBasically I read a lot, and the material I read varied hugely in difficulty, age appropriateness (or lack thereof), and genre. Though there was a lot of science fiction and fantasy and a steady stream of comic books. I did read (and write) poetry, I read a lot of mythology, a lot of the sort of chapter books children are supposed to read (Robert Louis Stevenson, L. M. Montgomery) and a great number of the chapter books children are not supposed to read (The Lord of the Rings, The Mists of Avalon, Tanith Lee's Delirium's Mistress). And I still read picture books, especially if they had pretty art or were fairy tales. The pattern was that I would read realistic fiction aimed at about my age level or even sometimes below, history and science aimed far above my age level, and science fiction and fantasy for any age. The worst age inappropriate thing I did was to read fat 500 page adult books from the New York Public Library on the French Inquisition in 6th grade - Piers Anthony's 6th book in the Incarnations of Immortality series was out then, (For Love of Evil) and I'd read the bits about the French Inquisition in shock - surely nothing could be so horrible. Well, of course the French Inquisition was much more horrible than that, and I gave myself nightmares for several weeks discovering just how horrible it could be, fueled by late-night chocolate-covered-coffee-bean binges at my grandmother's house as I worked my way through all those fat old books from the NYPL. I read a huge adult-aimed book on the Crusades too, and I'm afraid my picture of religious faith was rather bleak for a number of years thereafter. The Crusades and the Inquisition are a heavy one-two punch for an 8 year old.
2nd grade was the year I read The Lord of the Rings. My mom didn't want me to at first, but I liked the Hobbit so much, so she gave in. I read it over and over all year. I also read Bullfinch's Mythology ( It was a big edition that included stuff on Greek mythology, Norse mythology, the legends of Charlemagne, and other topics. The Charlemagne stories were my favorite.). I read all 14 of the L. Frank Baum Oz books, along with The Magical Monarch of Mo and Queen Zixi of Ix, but not Father Goose which I could never find. I read Bambi and Bambi's Children, the Five Little Peppers series, The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Peter and Wendy (as it was titled in the edition at my library) by J. M. Barrie, The Swiss Family Robinson, a kid's biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine that I read a bunch of times, and the Pyle Robin Hood.
In 5th and 6th grade I basically had 1 hour of school a day and then had to fill in the rest of the time by reading on my own, since I had run through most of the textbooks my very small school had. So I spent 5 plus hours a day in school reading, then read on the bus ride to school, the bus ride home, and at home, which explains why this list is so long - I typically might read 3 or 4 chapter books in a single day, and only favorites or ones I re-read a lot are even showing up when I think through this list. I read most of the Dorothy Canfield Fisher award nominees both years, and could still tell you plots of some but no titles/authors. Except for the Stephanie Tolan book because I just looked it up - I read it in 6th grade, it was called A Good Courage.
2nd grade was the year I read The Lord of the Rings. My mom didn't want me to at first, but I liked the Hobbit so much, so she gave in. I read it over and over all year. I also read Bullfinch's Mythology ( It was a big edition that included stuff on Greek mythology, Norse mythology, the legends of Charlemagne, and other topics. The Charlemagne stories were my favorite.). I read all 14 of the L. Frank Baum Oz books, along with The Magical Monarch of Mo and Queen Zixi of Ix, but not Father Goose which I could never find. I read Bambi and Bambi's Children, the Five Little Peppers series, The Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, Peter and Wendy (as it was titled in the edition at my library) by J. M. Barrie, The Swiss Family Robinson, a kid's biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine that I read a bunch of times, and the Pyle Robin Hood.
Either in 2nd or 3rd grade I read all of the Chronicles of Narnia (of which The Horse and His Boy was my favorite, and the Silver Chair my least favorite except for the Last Battle, which I still like to pretend never happened), the Silmarillion, the Tolkien Reader, my first Anne McCaffrey short story (The Smallest Dragonboy, which was in my school literature book), From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (the assigned reading for the advanced 6th grade reading class I sat in on), and a kid's biography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that I ordered out of the Scholastic catalog. I read my mom's Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comics (I loved Fat Freddy's cat, and mostly didn't get the rest of the non-cat jokes, especially Little Orphan Amphetamine, who puzzled me *intensely* since I had borrowed and read a 4 year compilation of daily little Orphan Annie strips from the WWII era from the library). I read the metal-head who stayed in our basement's stash of Elfquest and Savage Sword of Conan, which I vividly left me with the absolute conviction that as an adult woman I would be expected to wear a metal bra and a sort of skirt-thing made out of two straight panels held together on the sides with decorative metalwork. Also my career options were limited to slave girl or evil sorceress. I was hoping I could be Red Sonja instead. I liked Archie Digest comics too, but being Betty or Veronica seemed even less interesting than a career as slave girl. It was about this time that I saw my first issue of Wonder Woman (the great George Perez run) at the comic shop - #19, with Circe as the villain, which totally intrigued me because of the Bullfinch's Greek Mythology obsession (I also had a juvenile friendly verse-translation of the Odyssey, a couple hundred pages long, which I had read a lot, and so I was *totally* up on the uses of moly, so that's what hooked me into Wonder Woman). There was a shelf of fairy tale collections from different countries and cultures at the library, and I read through all of that.
In 3rd/5th/6th (these three years all run together for me in one lump because they were spent in the same building - 1st and 2nd grade had separate buildings so I can remember what I was reading when better for those years) grade my King Arthur obsession hit in, and I read The Once and Future King, The Mists of Avalon (which I did mostly get though I think all the sexual politics parts were a vague blur to me), and I made several dismal stabs at Le Morte D'Arthur (my mom had a copy lying around the house, but the language kept defeating me). I did get through Beowulf, from my mother's huge books of English Lit. I made a diligent stab at Das Kapital (got about 50 pages in) and Charles Darwin's Origin of Species and Descent of Man (got a good hundred plus pages in, but those sub-sub-species and sub-variants totally defeated me), mostly because I read and loved The Microbe Hunters, a kid's biography/history of disease research. I read "To Dance, To Dream" which was one of those "So You Want to be a ..." type books. Then I read Diane Duane's Wizardry books. I read Stefan Heym's King David Report, so I then went back and read the Gospels and the Books of Kings in my mom's bible, also Ecclesiastes because I liked the Peter Paul and Mary song. Beth Hilgartner's kid's mystery A Murder for her Majesty (and then A Necklace of Fallen Stars by her) was a favorite, as was Jane Yolen's Magic Three of Solatia (though I forgot the author and title, despite also reading her Dragon trilogy). I liked the Dark is Rising books, The Earthsea trilogy (I didn't want to be Ged, but I did want to own him, preferably in a small version I could keep in a toy box or castle as in Winthrop's The Castle in the Attic). I tried to read E. B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan and gave up several times. I read all of the Mary Poppins books at some point, along with Tamora Pierce's Alanna books and Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown and the Blue Sword. Tamora Pierce and Robin McKinley saved me from incipient gender dysphoria brought on by my King Arthur/Robin Hood obsession and my constant reading since age 5 of Conan comics. I read Asimov's The Gods Themselves, which I didn't get at all, though I liked it. I read Tanya Huff's Child of the Grove and Tanith Lee's Delirium's Mistress which was *far* too old for me but I loved it and then read everything by Lee I could get my hands on. I named my lego people after characters in those two books. I read David Eddings's Belgariad, and a bunch of books by Piers Anthony that someone gave me in a stack of SFBC books. That same stack included Larry Niven's The Integral Trees and L. E. Modesitt's The Fires of Paratime (which I loved for the Norse mythology). I read a fair amount of Robert Silverberg, including Star of Gypsies (which I loved and read many times) and Tom O'Bedlam (which confused me). I think I didn't read the Valentine books till later. I read a huge collection of American popular ballads cover to cover. I loved Cynthia Voight's books - especially Homecoming, Dicey's Song, and A Solitary Blue. I read Madeline L'Engle, who I loved - A Wrinkle in Time and sequels (all three of the main ones plus an Acceptable Time) plus others like Camille, The Moon by Night, the Arm of the Starfish etc. I read regular teen books too - like Ellen Conford's If this is love, I'll take spaghetti and Ellen Emerson White's books. I liked Stephanie Tolan's book on a family trapped by a religious cult, and Molly Gloss's Outside the Gates. My mom and I fought over Pamela Sargent - I wanted to read her but mom wouldn't let me. That was one of the few that mom won. Around this time mom instituted a firm "I must read one literary book for every 10 fantasy or science fiction books rule", so I started reading a lot of Mark Twain - Tom Sawyer, Tom Sawyer Aloft. The rule broke down as unenforceable after I ran out of Mark Twain, at least that's how I recall it. Then I went on and I read Heidi plus its sequels, Phillip Pullman's mystery series (The Ruby in the Smoke etc), everything the four nearest libraries had by Lloyd Alexander, a bunch of Diana Wynne Jones books - but more I think the short stories still than the novels, at least what sticks in my memory. I read a ton of Anne McCaffrey's Pern books. I read Robert Asprin's Myth books. I read all of L. M. Montgomery's Anne books up until Anne of Ingleside I think. By that point Anne didn't seem very dreamy or poetic anymore. But it was from Anne that I got my start reading Tennyson, which crossed over with the King Arthur obsession by middle school, when I worked through Idylls of the King. Somewhere in there dad brought home "The Courts of Chaos" for me and by the end of 6th grade I'd read through the first 5 of the Roger Zelazny Amber books plus Lord of Light and a few others.
In 3rd/5th/6th (these three years all run together for me in one lump because they were spent in the same building - 1st and 2nd grade had separate buildings so I can remember what I was reading when better for those years) grade my King Arthur obsession hit in, and I read The Once and Future King, The Mists of Avalon (which I did mostly get though I think all the sexual politics parts were a vague blur to me), and I made several dismal stabs at Le Morte D'Arthur (my mom had a copy lying around the house, but the language kept defeating me). I did get through Beowulf, from my mother's huge books of English Lit. I made a diligent stab at Das Kapital (got about 50 pages in) and Charles Darwin's Origin of Species and Descent of Man (got a good hundred plus pages in, but those sub-sub-species and sub-variants totally defeated me), mostly because I read and loved The Microbe Hunters, a kid's biography/history of disease research. I read "To Dance, To Dream" which was one of those "So You Want to be a ..." type books. Then I read Diane Duane's Wizardry books. I read Stefan Heym's King David Report, so I then went back and read the Gospels and the Books of Kings in my mom's bible, also Ecclesiastes because I liked the Peter Paul and Mary song. Beth Hilgartner's kid's mystery A Murder for her Majesty (and then A Necklace of Fallen Stars by her) was a favorite, as was Jane Yolen's Magic Three of Solatia (though I forgot the author and title, despite also reading her Dragon trilogy). I liked the Dark is Rising books, The Earthsea trilogy (I didn't want to be Ged, but I did want to own him, preferably in a small version I could keep in a toy box or castle as in Winthrop's The Castle in the Attic). I tried to read E. B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan and gave up several times. I read all of the Mary Poppins books at some point, along with Tamora Pierce's Alanna books and Robin McKinley's The Hero and the Crown and the Blue Sword. Tamora Pierce and Robin McKinley saved me from incipient gender dysphoria brought on by my King Arthur/Robin Hood obsession and my constant reading since age 5 of Conan comics. I read Asimov's The Gods Themselves, which I didn't get at all, though I liked it. I read Tanya Huff's Child of the Grove and Tanith Lee's Delirium's Mistress which was *far* too old for me but I loved it and then read everything by Lee I could get my hands on. I named my lego people after characters in those two books. I read David Eddings's Belgariad, and a bunch of books by Piers Anthony that someone gave me in a stack of SFBC books. That same stack included Larry Niven's The Integral Trees and L. E. Modesitt's The Fires of Paratime (which I loved for the Norse mythology). I read a fair amount of Robert Silverberg, including Star of Gypsies (which I loved and read many times) and Tom O'Bedlam (which confused me). I think I didn't read the Valentine books till later. I read a huge collection of American popular ballads cover to cover. I loved Cynthia Voight's books - especially Homecoming, Dicey's Song, and A Solitary Blue. I read Madeline L'Engle, who I loved - A Wrinkle in Time and sequels (all three of the main ones plus an Acceptable Time) plus others like Camille, The Moon by Night, the Arm of the Starfish etc. I read regular teen books too - like Ellen Conford's If this is love, I'll take spaghetti and Ellen Emerson White's books. I liked Stephanie Tolan's book on a family trapped by a religious cult, and Molly Gloss's Outside the Gates. My mom and I fought over Pamela Sargent - I wanted to read her but mom wouldn't let me. That was one of the few that mom won. Around this time mom instituted a firm "I must read one literary book for every 10 fantasy or science fiction books rule", so I started reading a lot of Mark Twain - Tom Sawyer, Tom Sawyer Aloft. The rule broke down as unenforceable after I ran out of Mark Twain, at least that's how I recall it. Then I went on and I read Heidi plus its sequels, Phillip Pullman's mystery series (The Ruby in the Smoke etc), everything the four nearest libraries had by Lloyd Alexander, a bunch of Diana Wynne Jones books - but more I think the short stories still than the novels, at least what sticks in my memory. I read a ton of Anne McCaffrey's Pern books. I read Robert Asprin's Myth books. I read all of L. M. Montgomery's Anne books up until Anne of Ingleside I think. By that point Anne didn't seem very dreamy or poetic anymore. But it was from Anne that I got my start reading Tennyson, which crossed over with the King Arthur obsession by middle school, when I worked through Idylls of the King. Somewhere in there dad brought home "The Courts of Chaos" for me and by the end of 6th grade I'd read through the first 5 of the Roger Zelazny Amber books plus Lord of Light and a few others.
In 5th and 6th grade I basically had 1 hour of school a day and then had to fill in the rest of the time by reading on my own, since I had run through most of the textbooks my very small school had. So I spent 5 plus hours a day in school reading, then read on the bus ride to school, the bus ride home, and at home, which explains why this list is so long - I typically might read 3 or 4 chapter books in a single day, and only favorites or ones I re-read a lot are even showing up when I think through this list. I read most of the Dorothy Canfield Fisher award nominees both years, and could still tell you plots of some but no titles/authors. Except for the Stephanie Tolan book because I just looked it up - I read it in 6th grade, it was called A Good Courage.
