what did you read as a child ?

[Jack Remillard]

My favourite books as a child were the The Dark Is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper. Recently adapted into an astoundingly bad movie.

[BaldJean]

I read all the Oz-books by Frank L. Baum and loved them. And my parents, who were hippies and had ideas about modern education, made me read "Robinson Crusoe", "Gulliver's Travels", "Tom Sawyer", "Huckleberry Finn", "Uncle Tom's Cabin", "Treasure Island" and the likes.

[BaldFriede]

I forgot to mention I read the books of Karl May too. He is not so well known in English speaking countries, but in Germany he is a bestseller still more than a hundred years after his death. His novels are adventure novels set in foreign countries, many of them in the Wild West, especially his "Winnetou" and "Old Surehand" trilogies, but there is also his orient hexalogy, "Durch die Wüste" ("Through the Desert"), "Durchs wilde Kurdistan" (Through Wild Kurdistan"), "Von Bagdad nach Stambul" ("From Bagdad to Stambul"),"In den Schluchten des Balkan" ("In the Ravines of Balkan"), "Durch das Land der Skipetaren" ("Through the Land of Shqiptares") and "Der Shut" ("The Shut") and lots of other novels. In many he himself is the main protagonist. May was great at creating comical characters; there is one in almost every novel. But these comical characters sometimes are very brave too, like Hadschi Halef Omar in the orient hexalogy or Hobble-Frank in several of his Wild West novels. His books have been sold over 200 million times. My elder brother had most of them, and I read them all too as a kid (and appropriately wept when Winnetou, the noble Red Indian who appears in many Wild West novels of Karl May as his best friend, died). There even is one novel (out of the "Satan and Iskariot" trilogy) in which Winnetou comes to Germany and visits Karl May while he is at his choral society, and he is very impressed with the singing there. I always found that part very funny, especially when Karl May's alter ego in the book says to Winnetou: "Du sollst jetzt Deutschen Gesang zu hören bekommen" ("You shall experience hearing German singing now").

[captainmeme]

Ummm... By 'child' do you include teen years? Before I was ten I loved the 'Deltora Quest' series by Emily Rodda, and for the other five years of my life I've loved Terry Pratchett books.

[spideyGirl]

Pretty much the same as most folks here, everything and anything I could get my hands on and a lot that I probably shouldn't have! I use to walk to school whilst reading, how I managed not to get run over or walk into a lamp post I'll never know.

A lot of mine have already been mentioned (Moomins, D Adams, Arthur C Clarke, JRRT, Lewis etc...) but here's some more that haven't (I think):

Nancy Drew Mysteries
Bobby Brewster
Super Gran
Doctor Who
1984

Love seeing my lad picking a book up and having a read

[TheTurtleMoves]

Beatrix Potter (Tales of Peter Rabbit etc.)
The Narnia books
Horrible History books
Jaqueline Wilson
Lots of other random factual books.
Fairy tales and nursery rhymes (Probably explains why I like Discworld stuff so much)
Roald Dahl

[spideyGirl]

Beatrix Potter (Tales of Peter Rabbit etc.)
The Narnia books
Horrible History books
Jaqueline Wilson
Lots of other random factual books.
Fairy tales and nursery rhymes (Probably explains why I like Discworld stuff so much)
Roald Dahl

My little lad loves Horrible Histories! The TV series is really good too.

[Finomans]

When I was around 7 or 8 my dad read The Hobbit to me... I think that's where the geekiness started.

[Wrecks]

When younger, I used to read a lot of Hank The Cowdog, Gooesebumps, and various other titles.

[shegallivants]

My parents used to stuff all these Penguin classics down my sister and my throats. Dickens. The Brontes. Fitzgerald. Austen. Melville. Twain. Dumas. We didn't mind so much, but really! At seven! Parents.

But my father also told these amazing bedtime stories about us as superheroes and they were these wonderfully empowering, almost feminist tales, which was lovely. I think he wrote a few down too. I must go dig around for them.

I adored all the boarding school series. My sister and mum and I would have midnight feasts in the blanket fort we built in the dead centre of the living room. We'd leave it up for weeks and guests would have to carefully avoid the sprawling, schizophrenic thing. No one would have enough linen or blankets or clothes pegs for ages. Ahhh...so lovely

[Cool Middle Name]

The first full Harry Potter book I read was Prisoner of Azkaban, then I started from the beginning of the series and worked my way up, my dad buying for me the last two books when they came out.

When I was Nine, I made an attempt to write a sequel to Order Of The Phoenix called Harry Potter and the Sphere of Light (lol prophecy orb?).
Then my dad discouraged me, saying that JKR would like to write her OWN books xD

Had I written more than half a page it would have been possible to make a fanfiction out of it, even if it IS a nonsense one made by a nine year old.

[deldaisy]

My parents used to stuff all these Penguin classics down my sister and my throats. Dickens. The Brontes. Fitzgerald. Austen. Melville. Twain. Dumas. We didn't mind so much, but really! At seven! Parents.

But my father also told these amazing bedtime stories about us as superheroes and they were these wonderfully empowering, almost feminist tales, which was lovely. I think he wrote a few down too. I must go dig around for them.

I adored all the boarding school series. My sister and mum and I would have midnight feasts in the blanket fort we built in the dead centre of the living room. We'd leave it up for weeks and guests would have to carefully avoid the sprawling, schizophrenic thing. No one would have enough linen or blankets or clothes pegs for ages. Ahhh...so lovely

How wonderful! We made cubby houses in a blanket fort too. Though NEVER at midnight... my fther turned the power off at 9pm sharp! Not the light.... the POWER! I used to make them with the oldest when she was little.... and the other two made some on the back deck over the swing chair about two months ago... of course it was raining non stop then so all the sheets and curtains go soaked... meh! Not easy to leave forts up here for long or the redbacks get into them so theyhad to be remade every day.

[meerkat]

I started reading as soon as I could remember.

The Wierdstone of Brisingamen
The I Spy books
Newspapers upside down (the news papers not me)
As much Dickens as I could download into my brain
Heidi
Poppy, patrol Leader (guides)
Chris at the Kennels
The Hobbit

When I got to eight I delved into information books.

Love books.

[Who's Wee Dug]

Dandy and the Beano
DC comics
Grimms fairy tales
Hans Christian Andersen
Biggles
Cowboys books: kit Carson & Buck Rogers
Robert Louis Stevenson
Dickens
some Shakespeare
Homer's Odyssey and other Greek tales
Norse fairy tales
1000 & one nights- sanitised version
Read quite a lot when I was young and never really stopped.

[shegallivants]

When I was Nine, I made an attempt to write a sequel to Order Of The Phoenix called Harry Potter and the Sphere of Light (lol prophecy orb?).
Then my dad discouraged me, saying that JKR would like to write her OWN books xD

Had I written more than half a page it would have been possible to make a fanfiction out of it, even if it IS a nonsense one made by a nine year old.

That's sad. The Harry Potter fandom was my introduction into fanfiction. Reading fanfiction exploded into writing fanfiction and then quietly, comfortably segued into original work.

JKR is a lot nicer about fanfiction than many authors. (Like Anne Rice, who demanded that ff.net remove all fanfiction based on her books ) I suppose the content is theirs, and perhaps they think fanfiction is mangling their hard work, but I think people who produce fanfiction are much better and more proactive consumers of literature than people who simply read the book, shut it and set it aside (Not that you can only be one or the either, mind you!). Writing fanfiction, for me, involved questioning, analysis, imagination and a real and abiding interest and love for the characters. Also, a respect and appreciation for the author's creation (coupled with the irreverence necessary to tweak characterization and throw characters into odd and amazing new situations ).