A Book Reading Meme

This is fun. From Kate’s Book Blog and via The Literate Kitten.

1. How old were you when you learned to read and who taught you?
I was four. My mother read to me every night. One night, she was late. I picked up a new library book to look at the pictures until she came in. It was a fairy tale, the one where the beautiful stepdaughter goes down the well to another land. When I looked at the words, I could read them! I tore into the living room, screeching, “I can read! I can read!”

2. Did you own any books as a child? If so, what’s the first one that you remember owning? If not, do you recall any of the first titles that you borrowed from the library?
I had lots and lots of books, and a little bookshelf right beside my bed. We also used to go to the library every weekend and to bookstores (where my mother had a standing rule that I could pick two books and she would buy them for me). The first book I remember actively acquiring was a library book. It was a gorgeously illustrated alphabet book with a picture of a rabbit on the cover. I went into paroxysms of grief every time my mother tried to return it. Finally, she reported it lost and paid the fine so I could keep it. Now if that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

3. What’s the first book that you bought with your own money?
I have no idea.

4. Were you a re-reader as a child? If so, which book did you re-read most often?
I honestly don’t know how I had the patience to reread books the way I did when I was a kid–so yes. I reread everything many times, often skipping certain sections, or picking up a book to reread a single chapter. The Betsy-Tacy books, A Little Princess …

5. What’s the first adult book that captured your interest and how old were you when you read it?
I was a stubborn little beast–no surprise–so at age nine when my mother told me I couldn’t read John Irving’s The World According To Garp, I sneaked it into my room and read it when no one was around. It disturbed me for years. You know what I’m talking about.

6. Are there children’s books that you passed by as a child that you have learned to love as an adult? Which ones?
I only read one of the Narnia books as an anklebiter, and I remember having Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, but didn’t read it until I was an adult.