The books that we are exposed to as kids have a great effect on how we perceive writing – especially fiction – as adults; our tastes, our fancies, our little quirks. If our interest is not piqued at an early age, it’s very possible that we will never read for pleasure.
Obviously, the people who will be reading this do not fall into that category.
But what first caused them – us – to venture down The Book Road?
Two books that influenced me enormously when I was very young are Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are, and (unusual for a British kid in the 1970s) Dr Seuss' The Cat In The Hat. The former taught me about the alluring power – and dangers – of an active imagination. The latter tempered this big, scary realisation (well, I was only four!) with warm feelings of safety, order, intelligence… basic cotton wool fluffiness. Next, I have a vivid memory of The Hobbit, read to me at bedtime by my mum. I must have been five or six. The Lord Of The Rings came next – edited for violence and horror! – which must have taken her about a year to get through. After that, there’s a break of about four years where I can’t remember much in the way of books at all. Then, when I was in my first year of high school (aged 11), I had to read a book from the school library and report back on it. I chose Smith, by Leon Garfield (think Oliver Twist directed by John Woo), and that was the first book I ever read that was purely my decision to read. Luck was with me; I thoroughly enjoyed it, and enjoyed writing about it. Who knows, if I had chosen something else, would I be posting this message here today?
In addition, one other work is important to me from childhood. It is Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence. I came to it about a year after Smith, initially through the second book (which gives its name to the overall sequence). No doubt my love of Tolkien influenced my decision to track down the rest of the story – part Arthurian legend, part faerie story, part Famous Five yarn – but I’m glad it did. Apart from having a very cool title, it read like dynamite and led me to CS Lewis, Kenneth Grahame, Roald Dahl… and eventually, although I don’t read much traditional fantasy these days, to JK Rowling.
How about you? What started the avalanche?
Tobytook
Obviously, the people who will be reading this do not fall into that category.
But what first caused them – us – to venture down The Book Road?
Two books that influenced me enormously when I was very young are Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are, and (unusual for a British kid in the 1970s) Dr Seuss' The Cat In The Hat. The former taught me about the alluring power – and dangers – of an active imagination. The latter tempered this big, scary realisation (well, I was only four!) with warm feelings of safety, order, intelligence… basic cotton wool fluffiness. Next, I have a vivid memory of The Hobbit, read to me at bedtime by my mum. I must have been five or six. The Lord Of The Rings came next – edited for violence and horror! – which must have taken her about a year to get through. After that, there’s a break of about four years where I can’t remember much in the way of books at all. Then, when I was in my first year of high school (aged 11), I had to read a book from the school library and report back on it. I chose Smith, by Leon Garfield (think Oliver Twist directed by John Woo), and that was the first book I ever read that was purely my decision to read. Luck was with me; I thoroughly enjoyed it, and enjoyed writing about it. Who knows, if I had chosen something else, would I be posting this message here today?
In addition, one other work is important to me from childhood. It is Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence. I came to it about a year after Smith, initially through the second book (which gives its name to the overall sequence). No doubt my love of Tolkien influenced my decision to track down the rest of the story – part Arthurian legend, part faerie story, part Famous Five yarn – but I’m glad it did. Apart from having a very cool title, it read like dynamite and led me to CS Lewis, Kenneth Grahame, Roald Dahl… and eventually, although I don’t read much traditional fantasy these days, to JK Rowling.
How about you? What started the avalanche?
Tobytook
I was actually born in Korea, and I stayed there until I was about 4 or 5. While I lived there my parents bought me these great easy to read classics (like heidi and oliver twist) that I read when I was bored (so not watching incredibly annoying korean children's cartoons and TV shows...if you saw one you would know what I mean) And then when i was 7 I went on this Trafalgar tour with my family (goodbye, grade 2!!) to Europe, and eventually we settled in Colchester, England. There my mom took my sister and I regularly to the public library (i forget the name 
) where I started my slowly but inevitable reading of yes, Goosebumps. What attracted me to those books? I have no idea. It might have been my sister (she was always finding the good stuff first, being older 
