what did you read as a child ?

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james.a.vivian

Lance-Corporal
Dec 26, 2010
105
2,275
Sydney
#44
snowballs said:
deldaisy said:
james.a.vivian said:
snowballs said:
james.a.vivian said:
deldaisy said:
Remember Tin Tin? :laugh:
I was more an Asterix and Obelix man myself in fact I still am, not to say that I didn't read Tin Tin
Totally agree with you about Astrix and Obelix. I used to read them while I had detention in the school library.
Have you seen the movies that the french did, there pretty good.
I've bought all the old animated movies in a boxset
Are you talking about the Asterix movie with Gerard Depierdiu (I have no idea how to spell his name).? Or the cartoons?

Yeah him with the big nose.
I hear that their making 'Asterix in Britain' Due for 2012
 

BaldFriede

Lance-Corporal
Nov 14, 2010
135
1,775
Cologne, Germany
#45
The scariest thing I ever read as a kid was "Krabat" by Ottfried Preußler.I was eleven or twelve, and it scared the living daylights out of me. And yes, it is a book for kids, but for grown-ups too. In a way it is a darker version of Harry Potter, though it came out some twenty years before Rowling's books.
It was made into a movie two years ago; here the trailer. It gives you a bit of the atmosphere, though the in my opinion really scary things are not shown in this trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyQfRmnAJv8
And the movie is not half as good as the book.
 

Jack Remillard

Lance-Corporal
Oct 27, 2009
439
2,275
#46
My favourite books as a child were the The Dark Is Rising sequence by Susan Cooper. Recently adapted into an astoundingly bad movie. :laugh:
 

BaldJean

Lance-Corporal
Nov 13, 2010
104
2,275
Cologne, Germany
#47
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

Lance-Corporal
Nov 14, 2010
135
1,775
Cologne, Germany
#48
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").
 
Nov 21, 2010
3,598
2,650
#50
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. :eek:

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 :laugh: :laugh:
 

TheTurtleMoves

Lance-Corporal
Feb 23, 2011
113
2,275
Worthing, UK
#51
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
 
Nov 21, 2010
3,598
2,650
#52
TheTurtleMoves said:
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. :laugh:
 

shegallivants

Lance-Corporal
Mar 22, 2011
348
2,275
Florence, Italy
#55
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 :laugh:
 

Cool Middle Name

Lance-Corporal
Apr 2, 2011
124
1,775
Cardiff, Wales
#56
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

Sergeant-at-Arms
Oct 1, 2010
6,955
2,850
Brisbane, Australia
#57
shegallivants said:
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 :laugh:
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: 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! :laugh: 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! :laugh: Not easy to leave forts up here for long or the redbacks get into them :cry: so theyhad to be remade every day.
 

meerkat

Sergeant-at-Arms
Jan 16, 2010
9,413
2,800
67
Pocklington East Riding Yorkshire
#58
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.
 
Jul 27, 2008
19,463
3,400
Stirlingshire, Scotland
#59
Dandy and the Beano :laugh:
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

Lance-Corporal
Mar 22, 2011
348
2,275
Florence, Italy
#60
Cool Middle Name said:
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 :devil:) 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 :laugh:).
 

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