# Your Earliest Memories of Buying Books?



## Straker (Oct 1, 2010)

I vividly remember the first book I bought with my own money: a paperback copy of _*Star Trek 8*_, one of a series of adaptations of _Star Trek_ episodes by the British SF writer James Blish. I got it (after many weeks of saving) from a wire spinner rack at the local First National supermarket where we did our shopping every week after church. Around the same time, I recall browsing the small paperback section of the local drugstore (Horgan's) and being vaguely scandalized (at about age 8 or 9) by the Shel Scott men's adventure novels featuring cover images of slinky women in various states of undress! Later, I would occasionally visit a local greeting card & gift store called Sackett's that also had a wall of paperbacks, where I'd buy SF books and novelizations of popular movies. Finally, in about 1975, a real honest-to-goodness shopping mall opened in our area which contained a store that sold _nothing but books!_ It was a Waldenbooks and I would have brought my sleeping bag & moved in if they'd have let me. Their SF section was bigger than the entire book department of all the other places - heaven!

It kind of makes me miss the DTB experience...well, a little anyway.










P.S. Don't ask me why the _Enterprise_ crewman is carrying a helmet. Maybe he's got a Harley stashed nearby or something...


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## Harry Shannon (Jul 30, 2010)

I used to read anything and everything lying around and lived in the public library. I cannot remember the first book I bought for myself, but it may have been Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. I saved up for it and went to hear him speak at the local library. After that I hung around a joint called The Paperback Shack and bought used books with every extra dollar.


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## Sean Patrick Fox (Dec 3, 2011)

I remember spending lots of time in Barnes & Noble browsing the Fantasy and Science Fiction section. Most of my money was spent on various books in the Dragonlance world. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that now


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## Rook (Sep 6, 2011)

I remember my dad taking me to a second hand bookstore when I was in maybe second grade. He said I could pick out any book I wanted. I said "really? Even these comic books?" To which he responded that it didn't matter what I read so long as I found something I enjoyed.

That approach worked to help make me a lifetime reader.


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## StephenLivingston (May 10, 2011)

When I was a kid at primary school we bought little stamps and saved them up until we had enough to buy a book from the school's bookclub.  I remember getting Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl that way.
Best wishes, Stephen Livingston.


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## Jorja Tabu (Feb 6, 2012)

Rook said:


> I remember my dad taking me to a second hand bookstore when I was in maybe second grade. He said I could pick out any book I wanted. I said "really? Even these comic books?" To which he responded that it didn't matter what I read so long as I found something I enjoyed.
> 
> That approach worked to help make me a lifetime reader.


This is almost exactly what happened with me! My dad took me to a second hand book store within walking distance of our house, and opened a barter account for me with about ten bucks. I still have it, over twenty years later, and even though I don't remember the first book I bought, I am sure it is somewhere on the shelves in that store, or bartered back out for another one I might have read later. It's a nice feeling.


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## jumbojohnny (Dec 25, 2011)

I don't want to re-tell Monty Python's Three Yorkshiremen Sketch, but as a young kid it wasn't about buying but going to the library - no money for books - not a penny. However, as time went on and things improved I had enough pocket money to then buy books if I wanted. My first purchases were supposed to be a couple of the Onstott - Horner offerings about slavery, but my sister-in-law quickly jumped in and suggested Tiggsy the Fluffy Bunny or something - I didn't know what was in those books apart from adventure tales set around a cotton plantation, now I do, and although the pair were not obsessed with sex there was enough in there to be unsuitable for a 9 year old. Anhyoo, thankfully Tiggsy the Fluffy Bunny stayed on his shelf-hutch and I bought the two Colditz books by Pat Reid.


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## churlishfellow (Feb 15, 2012)

So hilarious to me that the initial post mentions a Star Trek book. I remember my first "need" to have a bookshelf of some kind in my room and it was for my whopping library of two (2) books. One was Splinter In A Mind's Eye and the other a Star Trek book.










These first two books were gifts, but my first remembered purchases were in high school. I specifically remember gobbling up the Piers Anthony Xanth series. There might have been others that were first, but that's my first remembered book.


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## Ty Johnston (Jun 19, 2009)

The first book (other than comic books) I bought with my own money was _Splinter of the Mind's Eye_ by Alan Dean Foster. This would have been about 1978 or '79, and it was the first sequel of any kind having to do with Star Wars. As a kid, I HAD to have it.


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## Guest (Feb 20, 2012)

My earliest memory is of being given a book in preschool. I don't remember the title but it had a suitable Christmas message, it being Christmas.


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## soyfrank (Feb 2, 2011)

I remember buying my first book from one of those "book mobiles" they had in elementary school. Anyone remember those? It was a great program, and my parents were happy I was interested. I bought two Encyclopedia Brown books. They were fantastic.


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## KindleChickie (Oct 24, 2009)

My childhood memories were of the library also.  I also scrounged old paperbacks where ever I could.  I remember finding an old copy of Tarzan in a desk someone had put on the curb and being surprised how much I loved it.  I checked out all ERBs books from the library after that.


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

I remember my mother taking my friends and me to the mall where we eagerly grabbed volumes of Choose your own Adventure books - loved those!!


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## Mike D. aka jmiked (Oct 28, 2008)

My earliest memories of actually purchasing books myself are going to the base exchange near Toul, France in the mid-fifties. Paperbacks were 25 cents each. I remember in particular that one of the first times I went there, I picked up two SF novels, started towards the cashier, and realized I didn't have enough to pay for both. I put one back and bought the other, then started the walk back to my dad's office to meet him to go home. Partway back I flipped the book over and saw the cover of the book I had put back! I was amazed. This was my introduction to Ace double books.

Mike


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## Todd Trumpet (Sep 7, 2011)

I grew up in Detroit, and every elementary-aged kid in the district would be given a periodic catalog of children's books (Scholastic?) that could be ordered through the school: You went home, filled out a tiny order form, brought your money back to class, turned it in, and - voila - a week or two later, your teacher would hand you a neat little stack of books, all shiny and new. I don't remember many of the specific titles (though I'm sure Clifford The Big Red Dog and Encyclopedia Brown were on the list) but I do remember the excitement when the books came in.

It was a sweet little program.

Todd

P.S. And to add to the "early-STAR-TREK-book-on-the-shelf" part of the discussion, here was mine:


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## jaimee83 (Sep 2, 2009)

Hardy Boys in the late 50's


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## flipside (Dec 7, 2011)

I'd go to the local bookstore to purchase books based on Nintendo properties, Tom Swift, and various Choose-Your-Own-Adventures books (aside from the famous Choose Your Own Adventures brand, Nintendo had a line for Mario, and Spacehawks).


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## Jan Strnad (May 27, 2010)

I saw this question and regretted that there was no way in heck I could remember the first book I ever purchased. And then it came to me: _Alien Planet_ by Fletcher Pratt! Racked next to the comic books at Tompkins Sundries in Wichita, Kansas.

Dang. Those brain cells have been hanging around a _looong_ time just waiting for a little juice to fire 'em up!


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## KathyLynnHarris (Feb 2, 2012)

Another great thread here. I remember distinctly how excited I was when a paperback exchange bookstore opened up in my small, rural hometown in South Texas. I saved up to buy one paperback, then spent an entire summer going in every week to exchange it for another and another. The first book I bought (that wasn't through a mail-order book club) was Judy Blume's Tiger Eyes. I still have it!


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## Carol (was Dara) (Feb 19, 2011)

It was the library for me until I got close to my teens and a Hastings Entertainment store came to town. I bought many a Babysitters Club book there and would later swap them out at the used book store for the ones I didn't have yet. Loved the used book store. Also loved Waldon's Books in the mall and was sad when they shut down about a year back. Now we don't have a dedicated bookstore in town, just Hastings, which is really more about movies and music and board games with just some books thrown in on the side. If I want a bigger selection I have to drive 45 minutes to the nearest Barnes & Noble.


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## Lyndl (Apr 2, 2010)

It was Moonshine Island.  I don't remember the author but a google search shows one by Edith Miles which might be it. It was about 35c, which was a fortune to a 9 year old. I saved for weeks to buy it, I was so proud of myself!  I do still have it somewhere packed in a box. 

The second book was Ballet for Laura (by Linda Blake)  I received a copy of the sequel (Laura's Summer Ballet) as a birthday present.  This one was a whopping 60c !    These two books started my lifelong obsession with books.


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## Neil Ostroff (Mar 25, 2011)

I loved the smell of the old time corner bookstore. There was nothing like it.


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## Martin OHearn (Feb 9, 2012)

After appropriating the family's Tarzan paperbacks for my room's bookshelf, I went for indisputable ownership with Burroughs' _A Princess of Mars_ and _The Chessmen of Mars_. What makes the purchase stand out is that I bought them mail-order from Ballantine, because that month they weren't on the shelves in the neighborhood bookstore.


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## Not Here (May 23, 2011)

I don't know if I could really remember the first book. Seems like there were always a ton of books on my bookshelf or we were checking them out of the library. I also remember being very little and picking out books from used book store or garage sales. Actually, I can't remember a time when I wasn't getting new books to read.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

It is hard to remember clearly. The nearest bookstore was 60 miles away, but our house was full of books. I read much of what the tiny school library had, and there was always the bookmobile. My earliest memory of buying books was placing the orders for the Scholastic books in grade school.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I know that one of the earliest books I bought was War of the Worlds, but I am not sure about the first.  I remember trying to check out Stephen King's Firestarter from the library while I was in the sixth grade and getting so much crap from the librarian that I decided I would buy books from now on.


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## John A. A. Logan (Jan 25, 2012)

Aged about 6 or 7, in primary school in Scotland. There would be excitement every few months on the day the teacher had the new catalogue of books. It would be passed around the classroom and each of the 30 of us could choose a book which would be ordered. I think it would take weeks for these books to be delivered but again, big excitement on the day they came and everyone got their book. The smell of new books all through the room when the box was opened. And something very clean and new about the feel of the cover and pages. I can't remember when we had to pay, on delivery or when ordering...sometimes having a memory like this, I think back and wonder if I didn't even notice, in my excitement, that maybe there were children in the room whose parents wouldn't or couldn't afford the £2 or so for the new book. I was lucky, and I had the £2...or maybe it was £1 back then (about $2)...and then there must have been kids in the room who just hated books and that book ordering day...I was too excited about it to notice anything but my excitement at the time though. And the book catalogue had little thumbnail book covers, and little book descriptions, not unlike an Amazon page now.
(This was all back in the mid-1970s by the way...I would often pass dinosaurs on the walk to school)


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

It wasn't bought by me or for for me, but when I was in first grade, my parents bought this book:










I imagine they thought that I would just look at the pictures at most, but I was captivated (I'm sure by the pictures initially) and struggled through reading each of the short articles (not written for kids) on different topics in the book...._"Mom, what is this word?"_...I confiscated the book, and my parents seldom if ever saw it again. Parents, note that this lead to a fifty-year old man who crawls around with a camera on nests of stinging ants, so don't let this happen to your kids!  Incidentally, I still have the book and can see it as I post this, though the outer jacket was shredded and tossed out sometime in elementary school...I'd forgotten what the picture was till I looked it up to link to it.

A year or two later, I always requested for my birthday an hour in a local B. Dalton (Walden's hadn't come around yet, and this was the "awesome" bookstore that was accessible to us) and five dollars to spend as I wished. Inflation and greed escalated things, but this continued each year, I don't remember when it stopped, probably after I got a part-time job in tenth grade!


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## M.V. Kallai (Feb 20, 2012)

I remember in elementary school, my favorite days were when the book fair came. My mother always gave me a few dollars to buy books. I don't remember any particular book until 6th grade, when I bought A Wrinke in Time. Of course, by then, I'd already gone through most of the Beverly Cleary and Judy Blume books, so maybe that's what I bought earlier. So hard to remember. Go Superfudge!


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## LaRita (Oct 28, 2008)

I grew up in a very small town with no bookstore; but as a young child, my mother had to take me to the dentist every 3 months in a larger town 50 miles away.  As a reward for good behavior, I'd get a dollar which I'd spend at the Kresge's next door to the dentist's office on one of those brightly covered, cardboard bound books.  I remember buying Trixie Belden, Cherry Ames, Black Beauty, and probably many others.


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## Brownskins (Nov 18, 2011)

Buying using my own savings - I remember eagerly purchasing the next Enid Blyton book from any of her series books.  Borrowing from the library - I remember all of the Bobbsey Twins, Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books...


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## Darlene Jones (Nov 1, 2011)

Little Lulu comics when I was a kid on the farm. Does that count? Like all the other farmers, we went to town on Saturdays and if my dad had a nickel to spare, I got a comic. Sometimes I even go the fat one for a dime.


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## The world would be prettier with more zebra strip (Apr 20, 2011)

I was really the only reader in my family and we were not well off at all. My mother nurtured my need and took me to the library, but never as long as I wanted to be there. Thank goodness books were free to check out!



> I don't remember many of the specific titles (though I'm sure Clifford The Big Red Dog and Encyclopedia Brown were on the list) but I do remember the excitement when the books came in.
> 
> It was a sweet little program.


I remember that. I always dreamed of being able to fill it out.  I always tried not to cry when everyone got shiny new books.

The first book I ever got were a Special Mickey Mouse Collection that came to the store. Each time we went in, my mother made sure I got one.

My poor daughter now has the opposite problem of me. She's got that full Mickey Mouse collection, a collection on my Kindle and Nook I am building for her, as well as about fifty books not including all the golden books and when she gets much older I have over 300 comics she can read. 
...and she's only three.

That girl is gonna be set.


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## Mike McIntyre (Jan 19, 2011)

Todd Trumpet said:


> I grew up in Detroit, and every elementary-aged kid in the district would be given a periodic catalog of children's books (Scholastic?) that could be ordered through the school: You went home, filled out a tiny order form, brought your money back to class, turned it in, and - voila - a week or two later, your teacher would hand you a neat little stack of books, all shiny and new.


YES! This^
You put your money in these little string and button envelopes.
I still remember the excitement on book delivery day--that new book smell!


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## herocious (May 20, 2011)

i would travel to the states from colombia during the summer months when school was out.

the first time i went i stocked up on bestsellers more than any other item, including clothes.

in colombia i coulnd't find bestsellers that i could find easily in the states.

back then i thought bestsellers were the equivalent of classics.

i would defend bestsellers until the end.

then, several years later, i don't even look at bestsellers.

change happened somewhere between buying books for the first time and learning to read.


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## TLH (Jan 20, 2011)

I started off reading comics. Richie Rich, Archie, Hot Stuff, Casper. That's my earliest memory. I must have been around 6 or 7. I didn't take long for me to graduate to Encyclopedia Brown, though.


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## 31842 (Jan 11, 2011)

I was a Scholastic girl, too! But I remember I had ordered Robin McKinnley's "Hero and the Crown" and had been SO BLOWN AWAY by it, I needed to find more like. So I remember venturing out of the kid's section at Waldens in to the scary stacks of Sci-fi/Fantasy (and they were kind of scary... darkly colored covers and monsters on the front...) and I remember finding this book called "Arrows of the Queen". It had a pretty purple cover and had a horse on it. It was by a lady called Mercedes Lackey who had only written three books at the time.



It was all over after that. I saved up every cent of my babysitting money to buy stacks of fantasy books and I ate them up like they were Twizzlers.


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## LilianaHart (Jun 20, 2011)

We didn't have a lot of money to buy books when I was little, but I remember boing to the library at least once a week around the time I was 4 or 5. By the time I was in middle school I was hooked on books, and I spent any extra money I got at the bookstore. Good memories.


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## tinytoy (Jun 15, 2011)

I remember. It was No One Knows Where Gobo Goes; I bought it with my own money when I was about 7 years old. Funny story though; the book, at the time, was something like $10 + some change. My mother handed me a quarter to cover the overage because I only had a $10 bill. When it was my turn at the checkout I handed the cashier the quarter and hung on very tightly to my $10. My mother kept repeating "Jessica you have to give her the rest of the money" but I continued to hold onto my bill for quite some time before giving in. In the end Gobo prevailed and I walked away $10 poorer and one book richer.




I love me some Fraggles and Muppets. My home network's name is Gobo and I have Kindles named Piggy & Kermit. This thread makes me want to buy a hard copy of No One Knows Where Gobo Goes for DD.


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

We didn't have a lot of extra money when I grew up - but my Mom took me to the library once a week.  I went off to the children's section while she went to the grown-up section.  I also remember - in the back - they had a room where you could listen to a story (78 rpm record) while turning the pages in a book.. mostly Disney stories - like Pinocchio,  Peter Pan,  etc, etc.. Used to love that.


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## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

Used to order books the school catalog book drive all the time.  Absolutely LOVED it when I got to take that catalog home and check off the books I wanted.  As for books purchased outside the school environment—Tom Swift, Jr. and Sherlock Holmes were what I craved.

Then, of course, there were the ubiquitous comic books.  I was a DC kid, myself—Superman and Batman in particular, back when they ran 12¢ a copy, and you could get a 60-page giant for a quarter.


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## Nebula7 (Apr 21, 2011)

My Grandmother owned a bookstore so I never had to buy books. How's that for cool?


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## Cliff Ball (Apr 10, 2010)

My parents were buying me books before I even entered Kindergarten, and they were usually books that people read in high school. Like Huckleberry Finn, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, but I've only read Huck Finn, the other two used to sit on my bookshelf collecting dust.


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## CoffeeCat (Sep 13, 2010)

I can't remember the first book I purchased, but I was really into animal stories (horses mostly) when I was really young. Then I moved onto Goosebumps and the like. Family members would buy me things like the babysitters club but I never got that into them. 

I remember being thrilled for the school book fair that happened twice a year. We also went to the library every week as a class. My mom would take us to the bookstore a couple of times a month too.


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## 4eyesbooks (Jan 9, 2012)

My earliest memory of buying a book was The Little House on the Prairie series.  I was so captivated by Laura Ingalls.


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## Rebecca Burke (May 9, 2011)

Thank god for the Scholastic book program. Think of how many kids fell in love with reading because of its cheap books, delivered right to their classroom. My purchases were all over the place, but I distinctly remember gobbling up anything with dogs (Old Yeller) or horses (Misty of Chincoteague, Black Beauty) as well as some light fantasy like The Borrowers. And all the Encyclopedia Brown books. 

My first foray into what passed for a bookstore in our town (a kind of drugstore with a long shelf at the back with a hodgepodge collection by publishers of cheap books) led me to lots of Daphne du Maurier and even some Dickens. Pretty old-fashioned choices for a young girl but I'd never heard of any of the authors on display. Now, I doubt little book nooks like that exist.


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## Richard Parks (Feb 29, 2012)

We always had books, but the first one I can remember buying with my own money was a SHERLOCK HOLMES omnibus that I bought for my sister as a Christmas present when I was about seven. She of course had no interest in SH--I bought it so *I* could read it. I'm not proud of that, mind you, but if the circumstances were repeated, I'd probably do it again.


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## DrJeckyll101 (Feb 13, 2012)

I think i bought my first book when i was ten.


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## Rick Gualtieri (Oct 31, 2011)

I'm not sure I have specific memories of books, as much as the buying experience.

I used to love the book fairs at my elementary school.  However, even more were those rare mall trips.  (In addition to the toy stores) I'd usually find some excuse for my mother (not a big reader) to stop in to B. Dalton books.  I used to love to look at all the fantastic book covers and stories on the shelves.


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## brianrowe (Mar 10, 2011)

Goosebumps #4: Say Cheese and Die!!


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## Indy (Jun 7, 2010)

I bought scholastic books with saved-up money from the tooth fairy, plus a silver dollar (a real one) that I pried out of my baby book.  I got some weird little book that I thought was a guide to witchcraft, but it turned out to be kids recipes for cookies, sandwiches and other crap.  I was in second grade.  The book came one day, and the next day I had chickenpox.  I was stuck at home for two weeks with this worthless recipe book that couldn't even teach me to magic away the itchies.


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## Seanathin23 (Jul 24, 2011)

I remember I would know ruffly when the book fair was going to be coming to my elementary school and I would start saving my allowance. Then about a week before the fair we would all get the little catalog that looked like something out of the Sunday paper. You would pick what you wanted and then wait till it was your classes turn to go the the library and see what new things Scholastic had for you to buy.  I remember getting the Magic School Bus books, and walls of Goosebumps, as they started coming out when I was in the 3ed grade. Good memories, I remember teachers could get first dibs and I had my mom buy some of the really good stuff that might be gone before my class got there.


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## ciscokid (Oct 10, 2010)

The first books I bought with my own money were the Trixie Beldon books.  I was in elementary school and got $1.00 a week allowance and I believe the books were .79(hardcover) at the nearest Hills store. Every time we went shopping there I bought the next book in the series. They were my favorite books when I was a kid and I still have them.


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## Caspar Riga (Mar 7, 2012)

The day my mom received her degree for Dutch Literature, I bought a huge Snoopy book.


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## EliRey (Sep 8, 2010)

Indy said:


> I bought scholastic books with saved-up money from the tooth fairy, plus a silver dollar (a real one) that I pried out of my baby book. I got some weird little book that I thought was a guide to witchcraft, but it turned out to be kids recipes for cookies, sandwiches and other crap. I was in second grade. The book came one day, and the next day I had chickenpox. I was stuck at home for two weeks with this worthless recipe book that couldn't even teach me to magic away the itchies.


Yep scholastic books are my earliest memories of buying books though I had many before that, that were given as gifts. Beatrix Potter and Dr. Suess, and the big book of bedtime stories are my earliest memories. Then the book fairs in elementary were so exciting to me one of my very first chapter books I remember buying was Freckle Juice by Judy Blume. *sigh* Ah the memories of bringing those brand new books home and sticking my nose in them for days. =D


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## planet_janet (Feb 23, 2010)

Todd Trumpet said:


> I grew up in Detroit, and every elementary-aged kid in the district would be given a periodic catalog of children's books (Scholastic?) that could be ordered through the school: You went home, filled out a tiny order form, brought your money back to class, turned it in, and - voila - a week or two later, your teacher would hand you a neat little stack of books, all shiny and new.


Yep, the Scholastic Book Club--I have such great childhood memories of taking the order forms home, scrutinizing them, returning my order to my teacher, and then waiting until the glorious day when I'd come in from recess and see the Scholastic box sitting on my teacher's desk. The giddy joy of knowing I'd be going home with new books that day...waiting (not very patiently) for the books to be handed out...then jumping on the bus after school and pouring over my new books. The Scholastic book club is still in full swing and it makes me SO happy when my kids come home from school excited because they got a new order form that day.


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