# What Was The First Story That Hooked You?



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

What was the first book or story that really got it's hooks into you that helped to make you an avid reader? I'm thinking most here at the Corner are pretty avid readers. Well, some story was the first that filled your head with wonder--can you remember it?

Was it a book you read as a young kid or a teenager or an adult? Of course there were others after that first one, but which one first hooked you? For me it was:

Treasure Island.... I think I was about 6 when I first read it.


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## kindlegrl81 (Jan 19, 2010)

The first book I ever remember reading and loving was _100 Dresses_.


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## TWErvin2 (Aug 7, 2010)

I would have to answer: *The King, the Mice and the Cheese * by Eric and Nancy Gurney.

As a kid I thought the pictures were cool and I enjoyed the story's progression. I recall as an early reader keeping it sideways on top of the other books on the bookshelf in the hallway so I could grab it easily and leaf through it again and again.


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## D.A. (Mar 29, 2012)

It was funny just now, as I set my mind to remembering, and thought 'oh, I'll never remember the first'... and then in a sudden flash my whole mind was filled with it:  Charlotte's Web.  Oh, Charlotte's Web.  It was a magical book for me.  I haven't thought about it in years.  And then, I recalled an interview on the radio once long ago where E.B. White was talking about doing the audio version for Books On Tape.  When he got to the part where Charlotte dies E.B. began to cry.  They had to tape it 17 times until he could read it straight. Wonderful book.

Thanks, for the memory, Jackz4000.
D.A.


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## Storymagus (Jun 30, 2011)

I was 11 and it was called Tales Told to an African King. It was bought by a neighbour and I read it until it fell apart. Just going to Amazon now to see if it is still out there....


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## Lindafaye (Mar 29, 2012)

Sally, Dick and Jane! Seeing Spot run just got me interested right off and I had to know what happened next.  

Early reading really did open up new worlds to me.


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## A.A (Mar 30, 2012)

The Little Prince
http://www.amazon.com/The-Little-Prince-Antoine-Saint-Exup%C3%A9ry/dp/0156012197
Bitter-sweet, poignant, beautiful, a world unto itself - pure magic. As a kid, I wouldn't have used any of those terms to describe the book - I just knew it touched me deeper than any other book had.


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## Richard Parks (Feb 29, 2012)

I was a reader from the start, all I had to do first was learn how.  

But the earliest books I remember was a series called THE CHILDREN'S HOUR, which came in a set like an encyclopedia and covered different subjects: Poetry, Myths and Legends, Science Fiction, Fairytales... There were stories in the sf volume by Asimov and Heinlein that I enjoyed, but my favorite, the one that stuck with me the longest was "Lancelot Biggs of the Saturn" by Nelson Bond. The way he used humor in a story with otherwise serious subject matter was a revelation.


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## EliRey (Sep 8, 2010)

I have a very bad memory. I remember devouring the Little House on The Prairie books in grade school but for some reason I still remember buying The Ghost Next Door by Wylly St John at a book fair in my elementary schools library and being HOOKED. I just can't remember which came first the ghost book or the LHOP books. Either way.. *sigh*  The memories. I remember sitting on my bed holding the books, my eyes wide open with so much excitement and anticipation.


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## KindleChickie (Oct 24, 2009)

Watership Down was the first one I remember reading and retreading, over and over.


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## purplepen79 (May 6, 2010)

It would be a toss-up between The Borrowers and the original Nancy Drew books for me.  I really believed there were Borrowers living in my house after reading those books--Norton nailed the details and characters so well that it convinced me.


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## ElisabethGFoley (Nov 20, 2011)

My love of reading started even before I knew how to read for myself. My earliest memories of loving books are connected with A.A. Milne's original _Winnie-the-Pooh _ quartet. When I was a toddler, in the summertime I'd play in our little kiddie pool on the lawn and my mom would sit in a lawn chair next to it and read them to me. I used to laugh so hard at the line "Christopher - _ow!_ - Robin!" in the chapter "Winnie-the-Pooh and Some Bees," and Mom could hardly get through the "basket-chair" poem, she'd be laughing so hard herself. I still remember all of those stories and most of the poems so well, and still love them (and now I love Milne's writing for adults too).


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## manhattanminx (Mar 10, 2012)

jackz4000 said:


> What was the first book or story that really got it's hooks into you that helped to make you an avid reader? I'm thinking most here at the Corner are pretty avid readers. Well, some story was the first that filled your head with wonder--can you remember it?
> 
> Was it a book you read as a young kid or a teenager or an adult? Of course there were others after that first one, but which one first hooked you? For me it was:
> 
> Treasure Island.... I think I was about 6 when I first read it.


I was grounded a lot as a child, absolutely no television, so I turned into an avid reader. I can't point to one author in particular but will say I fell in love with Flannery O'Connor and Stephen King. I liked King because he scared me and I liked O'Connor because she has this vivid way of making me see her characters.


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## Shawn Mackey (Mar 28, 2012)

I started reading consistently after _The Stand_. It was the first adult novel I'd ever attempted to read. Up until then, it was always movie adaptions and _Goosebumps_ books. I carried it with me everywhere throughout most of my seventh grade year of school. I thought the story would never end. I've got to admit, that even though I was hooked the entire time, one of the main reasons I loved it was because of the mature content. Though I couldn't openly watch rated R movies in front of my parents, they never stopped encouraging me to read a book filled with sex and violence.


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## me3boyz (Jan 10, 2010)

I think I started reading after finding a double book. One side was a book called Three Little Horses by Piet Worm. Flipped over was a book called Veronica by Roger Duvoisin. Then I started reading the Bobsey Twins. But I absolutely devoured the Black Stallion books, seeing as how I was in my horse love stage.

I still have the flip book & 2 of the Bobsey Twins.


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## OdiOsO (Nov 12, 2010)

I remember being ten... and grabbing a copy of Jules Verne's _Voyage to the Moon_.

I was doomed from page 1... and I knew I had to become a writer, too


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## Jeroen Steenbeeke (Feb 3, 2012)

Pawn of Prophecy by David Eddings.

I remember standing at the local library, looking at the shelf with fantasy books and staring at the David Eddings books. A lady in her thirties walks up to me, and says: "I wouldn't read those, you'll get hooked on fantasy and never stop reading it, trust me"

I ignored her warning, and she was right.


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## Amy Corwin (Jan 3, 2011)

Swiss Family Robinson for me. And I still love adventure stories, although I'm particularly addicted to crime/adventure stories at the moment for some reason.


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## LilianaHart (Jun 20, 2011)

I started reading Mary Higgins Clark in the third grade. I was hooked from the first page and read constantly from then on.


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## Ghostwalker117 (Mar 26, 2012)

My Answer hands down would have to be The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien. I was a young man reading that and got so hooked in the legend of Middle Earth pre Rings.


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## mattposner (Oct 28, 2010)

I'll gladly vote for The Hobbit, as noted above, but before that I read The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.

As far as short fiction, I was hooked by "Sandkings" by George R.R. Martin when I read it in Omni Magazine in the earliest 1980s. The stuff before "Song of Ice and Fire" was just as amazing.


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## Luffy (Apr 5, 2012)

The Enchanted Wood, by E Blyton. I couldn't afford it so when I had borrowed it I typed out the entire story on a small copybook. To save space I wrote five lines between each space in the lines allotted. It would be wonderful if it was adapted in any medium; tv or direct-to-dvd...


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

Probably _The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree_ by Louis Slobodkin.

I checked on Amazon and it's still available, but with a horrible cover! I suppose the original cover and illustrations were pretty horrible, too, but they spoke to me at the time.


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## DH_Sayer (Dec 20, 2011)

The Giving Tree is the first one that made an indelible impression.

DHS


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## Debbie Bennett (Mar 25, 2011)

Enid Blyton. _The Thingy of Adventure_ series (insert _Castle, River, Island_ or whatever). Closely followed by the _Famous Five_ series. I was six and my dad would bring one home from work every Friday for me.


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## Brenda Sorrels (Mar 13, 2012)

The first book (or maybe I should say Author) that really hooked my was reading Thomas Hardy in College.....Jude The Obscure - and then Tess of the D'Urbervilles blew me away.  To this day, I remember Angel Clare and all that Tess went through.  Striked me how relevant it still seems today!


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## J.I.Greco (Apr 10, 2011)

I'd read as a kid, but didn't get "hooked" until my teens, when I read Gibson's Neuromancer... it just blew me away. Like a two-by-four upside the head. It made me a fan, turned me into a ravenous reader, and got me writing.


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## Steverino (Jan 5, 2011)

I didn't get started until junior high, and it was with Larry Niven's shorties. Then I was a hooked sci-fi junkie.


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## brianjanuary (Oct 18, 2011)

Wen I was ten years old, I happened across a paperback reissue copy of _Conan the Conquerer_ (originally titled _The _ _Hour of the Dragon_) by Robert E. Howard, first serialized in _Weird Tales_ from 1935-36. I couldn't put it down and I was instantly hooked. While I think that the Conan legacy has been sadly attenuated, the original Howard tales hold up wonderfully.


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## MHVK (Apr 6, 2012)

The absolute first story that hooked me, no joke, had to be 'Old Hat, New Hat' by the Stan and Jan Berenstain. I must have read that a million times when I was four and five. It's so simple, yet builds to a furious pace with nothing but descriptions of hats. Both the characters go through wonderful arcs. I loved reading it to my own kids. Funny. Poignant. Wonderful storytelling.


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## 4eyesbooks (Jan 9, 2012)

Judy Bloom did it for me. _Are You There God, It's Me Margaret_ just blew me away. After reading it as a preteen I was like...WOAH! I couldn't believe they could put some of that stuff in a book (I lived a sheltered life )


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## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

George Orwell 1984


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## joeyjoejoejr (Apr 19, 2012)

Ghosts I Have Been.  About a psychic girl in 1913 who has visions of a boy on the Titanic.  Read it in 5th or 6th grade and it was the first book to ever make me cry.


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## scottmarlowe (Apr 22, 2010)

The Dragonlance Chronicles and Brooks' Shannara series. I only got around to reading Tolkien after that.


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## BrandonJay21 (Apr 26, 2012)

4eyesbooks said:


> Judy Bloom did it for me. _Are You There God, It's Me Margaret_ just blew me away. After reading it as a preteen I was like...WOAH! I couldn't believe they could put some of that stuff in a book (I lived a sheltered life )


I may have to agree with you on Judy Bloom. Only mine was "Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing." Probably not as deep as "Are you there God..." but I still remember reading and rereading the book as a child.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

If you'll pardon the pun, the first story that genuinely hooked me was Hemingway's _The Old Man and the Sea_.


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## VixBarry (Apr 25, 2012)

The first book I read that made me think, 'I want to do that job,' would be The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe! When I was eight my teacher sent me home with it and that was it I hooked...I have probably read it over 50 times. When I left primary school, my teacher gave me the copy as a leaving present! 

Very good memories...


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## Grace Elliot (Mar 14, 2011)

As if my TBR list isnt long enough, I now want to write down all these books and read them - some great recommendations!
I was a bookaholic from an early age. The VERY first first book that hooked me was Anna Sewell's 'Black Beauty' and then after that, I loved the Arthur Ransome 'Swallows and Amazons' series . I remember getting them out of the library and being glad each book was so long because I didnt want them to end. I tryed getting my son to read Swallows and Amazons and he hated it - just not enough blood and gore for modern taste, apparently!


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## Guest (Apr 26, 2012)

It was a Hungarian audio story based on the French book, Contes des Cataplasmes by Vercors (It's title is "Mesék borogatás közben" in Hungarian). It's a very famous children story in my country, a beautiful story and it also had very good and memorable voice actors (Unlike most of the audio books today, in the past audio books had a great cast, one voice actor per character.). But there were many-many more. The Hungarian audio book of Cinderella. I loved the voice of the actress. Then The Busy World of Richard Scarry (I also practiced drawing from that book.  ). The Hungarian audio books of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Bambi and Bambi's Children by Felix Salten. Then the book of Peter Pan and Wendy by James Matthew Barrie and illustrated by Anne Graham Johnstone (I also loved to draw from that one.). Then there was the Spanish children book, El pirata Garrapata by Juan Muñoz Martín. And of course, my all time Hungarian favorite, Eclipse of the Crescent Moon by Geza Gardonyi. But I believe there wasn't a true first when I was a kid, but each of them was the first which hooked me in it's genre and shaped me to a writer.

Hmmmm. Maybe I'm going to listen the audio books. I still have them in mp3.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I keep reading this thread and trying to remember.  I read so much as a kid and I still read so much, I cannot recall the exact one.  I know War of the Worlds was the first book that grabbed me by the throat and I could not put down.  Jaws, however, was the first book I remember picking up, staring at the cover, and being utterly fascinated with.


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## D. Nathan Hilliard (Jun 5, 2010)

I've always been a reader, but as a teenager I tended to avoid the really thick books. It was The Stand, by Stephen King that finally convinced me that a book could be big and still keep my turning the pages till the end..


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## Lyndl (Apr 2, 2010)

Anne of Green Gables.  I was 7, and it was my first time in the School Library.  I'd read other books but that one made a huge impression on me.


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## DawnB (Sep 10, 2010)

I read many books as a kid, but the first book that hooked me was *The Collector by John Fowles* it was a required book in my 11th grade English class. I remember we were given the book on a friday & had to read part 1 by Monday. I started the book Saturday morning & was done reading the book by Sunday evening (I only stopped reading to eat & sleep). That was the first book I couldn't stop reading till I got to the end & one of the only "required" school reading books I truly enjoyed. I wish it was a ebook cause I'd like to re-read it. (it seems to be available for Kindle but not in the US).


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## Joseph_Evans (Jul 24, 2011)

The Fighting Fantasy books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, perfect for a reluctant reader like me.


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## Hope Welsh (Mar 9, 2012)

I remember the first book that hooked me on Romance as a genre:  FEVER by Elizabeth Lowell.  I was hooked from that moment on.

I've always been a reader, though.  When I was a kid, I loved biographies. I read them as fast as I could get my hands on them. I also loved Little House on the Prairie books.


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## Verbena (Sep 1, 2011)

I think it's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.


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## RichardHein (Jun 8, 2011)

Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper. I'd read books before then, but it was the first thing that caught my imagination on fire. The teacher was reading it to us in the sixth grade, a few chapters a day, but I was so entranced I checked out the remainder of the series so I'd have it available once we finished the first book. What wasn't to love? Arturian legend was right up my alley at that age! I polished off the whole series in short order, and to this day can still quote many of the rhymes in it, 20+ years on


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## John Blackport (Jul 18, 2011)

balaspa said:


> I keep reading this thread and trying to remember. I read so much as a kid and I still read so much, I cannot recall the exact one.


Dammit, me too.

It came to me this morning: *Where the Wild Things Are.* 

How could I have FORGOTTEN that?!


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## Tracey Ivy (May 7, 2012)

The Wind in the Willows - my mum would read it to me when I was tiny and I still remember parts of it today.


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## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

John Blackport said:


> Dammit, me too.
> 
> It came to me this morning: *Where the Wild Things Are.*
> 
> How could I have FORGOTTEN that?!


The author died today.


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## Neil Ostroff (Mar 25, 2011)

I'm showing my age but it was ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach. It changed my life.


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

In terms of short stories, probably 'The Scythe' by Ray Bradbury, a really terrific piece of atmospheric, spooky Americana with a big surprise ending.


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## omadonna (Nov 5, 2011)

> I was a reader from the start, all I had to do first was learn how.


Exactly! I learned to read very early and our house was always full of books. Of course, I read the same cereal box every morning and plopped down on the living room floor with Mom's humongous dictionary every chance I got, too.

When I started school and they first took us to the library and told us that we could borrow books, I was ecstatic. And just in case there was some misunderstanding and I was only going to get this one chance, I chose the biggest book I could find. Turns out it was Bambi. I devoured that book and when I took it back to the library I nearly had separation anxiety! But they were telling me the truth and I checked out Blue Willow next. I'd have to say that those two books still hold very fond memories for me.


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## Todd Young (May 2, 2011)

Gone with the Wind, when I was about 13. I don't think I could read it now.


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## NanD (May 4, 2011)

The Black Stallion series  - can't remember how old I was - probably about 4th grade.


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## Tonyshoey (May 23, 2012)

What a great question! 
I used to be press ganged into the local town centre on a Saturday morning by my Mum when I was a kid and I hated it. 
Hated it with a passion. 
This was in the days before one stop supermarkets and trolleys to hold onto, this was in the days when a reusable shopping bag was made out of string and if you were a kid you had to be careful to dodge all the cigarettes that seemed to be held at the perfect height to stab you in the side of the head.
She would (literally) drag me from one shop to the next, butchers, greengrocers, chandlers on and on, feet aching I would go walking and whining.
My treat for being such a martyr (brat) at the end was half an hour in the library (half an hour exactly) and then home just in time for Doctor Who. As soon as I got into the library I'd head straight to where I knew the Agaton Sax detective novels were, and if they were out of stock I'd wander around the shelves, pulling books, looking at the covers and putting them back, thoroughly fed up but determined I was using my full half hour.
One day I found a book that changed my life. A real lottery ticket of a book that I used to carry around just so I had it with me, so it wasn't far away. 
A life shattering book that still to this day makes me pine for that first read all over again...
"My pal Spadger" by  Bill Naughton. 
Do you know that feeling? The one where you are reading and you momentarily drift back into reality and stop for a second and think "Wow."? Well this book gave me that feeling for the first time. I went onto read the rest of his work and I loved it all, I mean really loved it all, his collections of short stories, his plays, his novels I loved them all. 
No other writer had such a profound effect on young Shoey, and few have since.
I've not read the book since I was a kid, I'm a bit scared to be honest, in case it lets me down and isn't as beautiful as I remember. A bit like the gorgeous girl you remember from school who has let herself go, I'd sooner have my memories of that first "Wow".


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## B.A. Spangler (Jan 25, 2012)

For me it was Robinson Crusoe. Still remember being nine or ten and holding the book and reading page after page, long after I was supposed to have gone to bed


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Green Eggs and Ham.  Seriously.  Still love the absurdity and giddy humor of that book.

Betsy


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