Who helped you develop your love of fiction?

[Rabblevox]

Poll question: Who helped you develop your love of fiction?

Nobody is born reading or wanting to read. And there are plenty of smart, well-educated people who almost never read for enjoyment.

But if you are on this forum, you like written, long-form fiction. That makes you a rarity in today's world.

I'm just curious...how? Positive influences come from everywhere.

For me, it was a combination of growing up in a literate family, where books and ideas were talked about as much as sports. And MOST IMPORTANT...

My 4th-grade teacher, Miss Aldridge (and yes, I had a huge boy-crush on her) thought I might be ready for "The Hobbit" OMG OMG OMG! I was staying up reading under the covers by flashlight.

I was hooked. That same year she introduced me to H.G.Wells, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov. (not well rounded, I know, but not one of her recs that I don't still appreciate) and she would talk to me about plots and characters and themes, what I liked and what I didn't...she gave me a private course in lit-appreciation at twelve that has lasted me over 40 years.

Miss Aldridge, there is a very special place in heaven for teachers like you.

OK, YOUR TURN...

[kestrel91316]

1. The 6th Grade teacher who read us The Hobbit. She was an awesome storyteller.

Carole Parsons, who taught 6th Grade at Laurel St. Elementary School in Ft. Collins, CO in 1968-69 - YOU ROCK!!!!

Of all my teachers, she is the one I would most love to get in touch with all these years later if I could.......

[Rowdyboy]

2. Mom gave me Black Beauty when I was 8 and I've been hooked ever since

[appleannie1]

3. My mother and my grade school library/reading teacher, Miss Garrity were both influential to me.

By the time I had finished 6th grade, I had read every book in the school's one room library. My younger brother and I then started going to the community library and taking out 5 books at a time every week.

[northoftheborder]

4. As soon as I was taught to read anything, which was "Dick and Jane"

by my Mother when I was 5, I was hooked on reading. I read everything, and anything that was in the house, and we always had plenty of books, plus school books, library books, grandparent's bookshelves. I enjoyed reading more than doing anything else. My first book, other than the European folk tales and nursery rhymes, that I fell in love with and read over and over and over, was "Little Women", and the other Alcott books.

[LuvNewcastle]

5. My grandmother read to me a lot, from

the time I was very small. She taught me my ABC's and some basic words before I went to kindergarten. I also learned a lot, strangely enough, from a teacher who ignored me and the rest of the class. When I was in third grade, my family moved to an area with horrible public schools, so my parents put me in a private school. My teacher was little more than a glorified baby sitter. The classroom was well stocked with books, however, so I passed the time reading while the other kids played with the toys they brought. I was reading Mark Twain at that age and I understood most of it. Kids can learn a lot more than adults give them credit for.

[SheilaT]

6. I'm not entirely sure I can answer that directly.

My mother read to me when I was young. I can recall quite clearly the pictures of certain stories, and later, when I did learn to read, was astonished to see the words on the page. When I couldn't read, they were invisible to me.

I also recall being quite annoyed that no one would teach me how to read before I started school. i really, really wanted to learn, but kept on being told that I had to wait. Several years later I taught my younger sister to read before she started school.

Anyway, I can't recall a time when I didn't love stories, being read to, then reading myself. And that's still true.

[jwirr]

7. My mother read to us once in a while but a teacher was the one

who really brought reading to me. I was in the poor readers unit because I to this day have trouble reading out loud. Our 5th grade teacher would take just our unit to the public library once a week and that is where I learned to love reading. The first incentive was being able to get out of the school and walk to the library but we soon learned that there were other adventures in books.

[Old Codger]

8. Had a lot to do

with boredom really, there were books around the house and it was winter time in Minnesota, so read them, was a whole series on a person named Herb Kent, west point cadet. Since my middle name is Kent it was an attraction, as I grew older I started doing some baby sitting in the neighborhood, one family had a lot of science fiction around, older Asimov stuff and Heinlein, this was in the early 50's not a lot of tv around then so reading was big time filler. Never lost that interest to this day, still go through 3-4 paperbacks a week...

[tech5270]

9. I had two or three teachers that steered me to reading

Most of what I read was Sci Fi and I wrote quite a bit in my younger years. The biggest influences for me were Animal Farm,Fahrenheit 451, and Stanyanay. There's another Indian writer who's name doesn't come to mind, but provided great spiritual influence. In twelve years of basic education I probably had a dozen teachers that really urged my desire to learn. Unfortunately, I've gone to the funerals of more than a few.

[mvccd1000]

10. Mom, I suppose.

She still has a Disney book of Pluto and the Haunted Mansion that she says I had memorized by age 3 or 4. I remember starting kindergarten and asking the teacher when we would learn to read and being disappointed when she said not until later in the year or in 1st grade. :)

The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade classrooms had sets of small softcover paperback series that got progressively more advanced, and I used to stay after school reading until the teacher would leave and make me go, too.

I've slowed down a little over the years; when I was a kid I'd sometimes read 300 books a summer for the public library's summer reading contest, but I'm down to only 100 a year these days. Still enjoy it, though - I'd rather read than watch TV.

[Nay]

11. No one that I can remember. I just started reading and I took off from

there. I never looked back!

[DisgustipatedinCA]

13. I think I am the same way

I do fully credit my Mom with stressing the importance of reading, reading lots to me at an early age, and teaching me to read when I became ready to do so at a fairly early age. But when it came to reading fiction, that was just kind of me on my own.

[RebelOne]

14. Same here. But I developed a love of science fiction when I was a teen.

Don't read that much any more, because all the science fiction I read in my teens is reality today.

[TNDemo]

12. For some reason, my mother did not want to spend

her entire day reading to me, which irritated me no end. My brother was older than me and would come home and teach me what he had learned in school so I started reading at four. I was thrilled. No more waiting on my mother to read the next part. I got a library card and you would have thought it was the keys to Disneyland. I was truly a little geek. I remember being mad that all the heroes of the kid mystery series were always about nine. I wanted someone my age!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. When I was a kid, you didn't learn to read in kindergarten, but I was sick most of that year,

much of the time not sick enough to be bedridden, but too sick to go to school. I was bored and driving my mother crazy when she also had my two younger brothers to take care of.

Both she and my father had been elementary school teachers in their past lives, so they decided to teach me to read. They had long started to teach me to sound out words like "m-i-l-k" on the carton or to print my name, so it was a small step.

Once I had the hang of sounding out words, they laid in a supply of books. As long as I had books available, I was happy.

This is still true.

A day when I don't get to read just feels wrong somehow.

[Mz Pip]

16. Circumstances played a big part

I was an only child living in a very rural community. I learned to read because there wasn't really much else to do.

[JitterbugPerfume]

17. a combination of influences---

I really think genetics is a main influence, because all of my siblings are readers and there were few books in the home I grew up in other than the omnipresence of the Bible


When i was in grade school the teacher always read books like The Bears of Blue River to us and our Sunday Scool teacher , Mrs Nantz could tell the best Bible stories---

[Moe Shinola]

18. A teacher,...

who, in my grade school, read A Wrinkle In Time and Willy Wonka and the Glass Elevator aloud to the class. It was a real gift.

[pitohui]

19. my mom

read to us from the day we were born, or at least it seems that way

[LWolf]

20. My mom, who has a lifelong passion for stories.

She told them to me, and she read to me from birth. She'd read anything, but she'd read favorites over and over until I was "reading" them with her. I couldn't WAIT to learn to read. I was sad on the first day of kindergarten because I figured that's the first thing I'd get to do...learn to read.