I'm actually using the Holidailies prompt for the day, since I don't think you really want to hear about the 139 page document I had to slog through or the briefing charts I didn't quite finish writing or any of the other ways exciting things I did at work.
The first book I remember owning (which may or may not be the first book I actually owned) was titled You Will Go to the Moon. It involved a family setting off for a trip to the moon, with a stop along the way at an orbiting space station. I seem to recall the station spinning to create artificial gravity. I can't say I remember much else about the book other than being pretty sure I read it several times. It may or may not have contributed to my proclamation that I wanted to be an astronaut, which back in the early 1960's was pretty much dismissed as a ridiculous ambition for a girl to have.
I know we got some Dr. Seuss books from the same mail order program we got the moon book from. I liked the bright colors and silly rhymes. Bright colors were also what probably drew me to comic books, which made up quite a lot of my childhood reading. On Sunday mornings, Mom would send my brother and me over to Rhodes (officially a delicatessen, but really more of a general store), which was halfway between our house and town. We were given money for the Sunday newspaper and a box of Italian pastry and allowed to spend the change on our own purchases. We got very good at mental arithmetic so that we could maximize our acquisition of junk food (Wise onion and garlic potato chips and bottles of Yoohoo, in particular) and comic books. I had a particular thing for Wonder Woman, though one of my career ambitions arose from another comic book hero. It was a freak chemical accident that gave the Flash his super speed so I figured becoming a chemist (and a police chemist at that) was my best shot at getting a super power.
That ambition was reinforced by reading a comic book biography of Madame Curie. I think that was in the back of a Classics Comic about atomic power, which also told about Enrico Fermi. The other Classics Comic that I remember distinctly was their version of The Count of Monte Cristo. I later read the "real" book and liked it just as much.
I still believe that one of the reasons both my brother and I grew up to be readers is that we were allowed to read anything. Several of our neighbors disapproved of comics, while my mother happily read ours. (Dad favored Mad Magazine. Ostensibly, he bought it for us, but the fold-ins were always done by the time we got to see the latest issue.) The children whose reading was censored didn't develop the same love for reading that we did.
It also helped that we went to the library every week. Mom picked me up from ballet class and the library was just across the street. For some reason, the library book that still sticks in my mind as a favorite is Madeleine. I didn't develop any particular desire to be in Paris or to have my appendix out, but the images were just particularly vivid.
Most of the books we owned came either from Scholastic Book Service (which you ordered by catalog in school) or from used book stacks at rummage sales. I can only think of a handful of hardcover books I had, most of which were Nancy Drew mysteries. There was also a book of Norse myths that I was very fond of and an unexpurgated volume of the Grimms. I know the Nancy Drews were eventually given to my cousin Ellen and I've never entirely forgiven her for that. (She also usurped name necklace glory in Grandpa's jewelry store.) I don't know what became of the folklore stuff. I finally gave away my mother's copy of Charlotte's Web, but I still own a rather tattered Alice in Wonderland. I also still harbor hopes of someday getting the Wonder Woman comics and my copy of Mr. Popper's Penguins back from my brother.
Copyright 2007 Miriam H. Nadel