Childhood reading influences?

[cdstefi]

As a very young kid I read stuff like Rupert the Bear and Winnie the Pooh, then as my parents had a boat I got into sailing stories, which peaked with the whole Swallows and Amazons series, which I still love and reread occasionally to this day, and now own a full set of Jonathan Cape hardbacks with the hand-drawn illustrated dustjackets.

It's easy to mock the white middle-class privately educated protagonists and their Empire-era attitudes now, and certainly when other races are involved in Peter Duck and Missee Lee they're shown as risible and insulting stereotypes, but for all that I believe the books set a moral example - doing the right thing, being honest, independence and self-reliance - that got me at an impressionable age and stuck with me.

Once I joined the adult library at 12 (having exhausted the junior library of everything that interested me) I let rip and read voraciously, mostly Alistair MacLean and Hammond Innes style thrillers at first but then expanding into the more serious stuff (largely with the encouragement of a great English teacher, Mr Adams) and I developed a lifelong love for good, thoughtful sci-fi.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Writers tend to be big readers and big readers are usually that way from a young age. I certainly was.
I loved animal stories as an early reader and was a big fan of Gentle Ben, Black Beauty, the Black Stallion, White Fang, and the like. But I picked up Edgar Rice Burroughs's, Tarzan at age 9 or so at the school book fair and it was stories of high adventure or nothing after that. Burrough's Tarzan, John Carter, and his tales of Pelucidar, Robert E Howard's Conan, and Solomon Kane, John Norman's Gor series, plus the classics like Treasure Island, Moby Dick, and pretty much everything by Jules Verne. By 12 I'd found my way to Narnia and Middle Earth and all points in between.

I can honestly say those stories of heroes and villains, strong men and weak helped me understand the kind of person I wanted to be. They were very formative. Traits that we don't see on a daily basis, I found in those books. Honor, courage, nobility, integrity, and a fair amount of romance, I learned from those stories. Sadly, I found dealing with the fairer sex a bit more challenging than, "Me Tarzan, you Jane." But then again, I suspect that Burrough's understood women even less than he did Africa.

Anyway, those are the writers and stories that helped mold young Rob, back in the days of disco, new wave, and hair metal music.
How about you? Who inspired you; who captured your imagination, who made you feel something back when you read late at night, under the covers with your flashlight?

The Judy Moody books by Megan Jo McDonald.

Later Winnie the Pooh was my gateway drug into English authors.

Em

 

[Greytruck]

Was a early reader here. Product of the 60’s
regular cowboy books, action novels. Boy stuff.
foubd a book my older sister was reading called boys and girls together.
was the filthiest book I ever saw. When I was able I’d get it and read the stories.
unbelievable stories of sex acts between boys and girls.
I was young.. 12-13 I’m guessing..
I was hooked on erotic literature

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Jules Verne, followed by Tolkien, Poe, and finally Dostoyevsky. I've read plenty of other authors after, but these made the most impression on me.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Jules Verne, followed by Tolkien, Poe, and finally Dostoyevsky. I've read plenty of other authors after, but these made the most impression on me.

I used to read Verne as well. And H G Wells. Period Sci-Fi (before the term was even invented) is kinda compelling.

Em

 

[ronde]

Writers tend to be big readers and big readers are usually that way from a young age. I certainly was.
I loved animal stories as an early reader and was a big fan of Gentle Ben, Black Beauty, the Black Stallion, White Fang, and the like. But I picked up Edgar Rice Burroughs's, Tarzan at age 9 or so at the school book fair and it was stories of high adventure or nothing after that. Burrough's Tarzan, John Carter, and his tales of Pelucidar, Robert E Howard's Conan, and Solomon Kane, John Norman's Gor series, plus the classics like Treasure Island, Moby Dick, and pretty much everything by Jules Verne. By 12 I'd found my way to Narnia and Middle Earth and all points in between.

I can honestly say those stories of heroes and villains, strong men and weak helped me understand the kind of person I wanted to be. They were very formative. Traits that we don't see on a daily basis, I found in those books. Honor, courage, nobility, integrity, and a fair amount of romance, I learned from those stories. Sadly, I found dealing with the fairer sex a bit more challenging than, "Me Tarzan, you Jane." But then again, I suspect that Burrough's understood women even less than he did Africa.

Anyway, those are the writers and stories that helped mold young Rob, back in the days of disco, new wave, and hair metal music.
How about you? Who inspired you; who captured your imagination, who made you feel something back when you read late at night, under the covers with your flashlight?

My experience is much the same as yours especially the works of Burroughs and Jules Verne. I read about anything there was to read that had adventure to include some books I would love to have in my personal library that are sadly out of print now and very difficult to find. As I aged, I read most of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. They were novels about real men and real women and they did impact my life.

I've loved historical accounts and novels of the American Civil War, WWII, and Vietnam. They're an insight into both the conflicts on the battlefield as well as the conflicts of the men and women who served during those times.

I'm dating myself, but in junior high and high school, I spent a lot of time searching through the "World Book Encyclopedia" that my mother bought for us. That and the school library were my "internet". How things have changed.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

I used to read Verne as well. And H G Wells. Period Sci-Fi (before the term was even invented) is kinda compelling.

Em

The library where I grew up wasn't big on SF and Fantasy. Tolkien was all they had. They also had War of the Worlds and yeah, it was one amazing read.