Would you have considered yourself "well read" as a child/teen?

[Crissy]

Not remotely.

 

I probably read ten or fifteen books before I was 30.

 

These days I read between 40 and 50 books in a year, and I try to choose quality work.

I still don't feel well read, but I do feel as if I might get there some day.

[Kanga]

Yes and No! I had great literature teachers in high school and college and I devoured everything assigned. However, my mother hated reading the classics and thought she was doing us (her avid reading children) a favor by buying us dime store novels. I didn't read Anne of Green Gables until I was 27! I have enjoyed reading all of the children's classics as an adult and I guess it makes me more enthusiastic when discussing the books with my dc. I get sad when some of my friends have a BTDT attitude about great books.

[Mekanamom]

Yes... for a teen. I read most of the books on the reading lists. They would give us a page or two full of titles and tell us to pick one book. I would read tons of them and then pick my favorite for whatever report we were doing.

 

The school reading lists were awesome. It was my only guide to "good" books. (Neither of my parents were readers. They could read, but they... just didn't.)

 

I read a lot of twaddle too- but never could stand those awful teen romances. LOL.

[TeacherZee]

Compared to other children/teens I was. I only had to do a book report on every third book in 6th grade because I read far more than anyone else in my class. I did read a lot of trash as well, but I read fast and could easily finish a Sweet Valley High book or a Danielle Steel one in a day.

 

I also had the advantage of doing two lit courses at IB level in high school so I read a lot of the classics there. I also went on a complete Shakespeare binge at one point in high school :D

[Jenny in Atl]

Yes, but then so were my parents and grandparents on my mother's side.

[gandpsmommy]

I read every single assignment ever given to me (including Robin Crusoe, in it's entirety, even though I did read the last few chapters backwards because I was getting so bored with the dull, dry descriptions and needed to do something to prevent myself from falling asleep!) I also read quite a bit in my free time because I enjoyed reading immensely, but I don't know that I would consider myself to have been well-read.

 

 

My mother was an elementary school teacher who took off seventeen years to stay at home with my siblings and me. She read to us frequently when we were young. I remember her reading novels to us at bedtime when we were preschoolers. We had a good number of our own books at home and she took us to the public library for story hour and to check out books.

 

Unfortunately, she wasn't well-versed in the classics, so while she did read some nice children's novels to us (I recall Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and it's sequel, some Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books, Boxcar Children, The Happy Hollisters, The Bobsey Twins, and other similar books), many of the books I had available to read as a child and early teen were what I would now consider twaddle or fluff. I read a lot of The Babysitter's Club books, Sweet Valley Twins books, Nancy Drew type books, and Christian romance novels.

 

The first classic I remember encountering and the first book of any length which I loved well enough to re-read was Little Women. My eighth grade reading teacher introduced me to it when I was searching for something to read for our free reading time. It remains a favorite of mine. In fact, I may have to re-read it now that I'm thinking of it.

 

In high school we began to receive classics as assigned readings, but not too many. We still took a great deal of our readings from reading textbooks, with little snippets of stories.

 

My freshman year we read To Kill A Mockingbird and Lord of The Flies, but I can't recall any others from that year. My sophomore year we read The Return of The Native, A Separate Peace, and Robinson Crusoe, but again, I can't recall anymore. My junior year we read The Scarlet Letter, The Red Badge of Courage, Huckleberry Finn, In Cold Blood (not exactly a classic, and it frightened me horrendously), Black Like Me (which I only fully appreciated when re-reading it as an adult; what a powerful book,), and some good poetry (all I recall is Emily Dickinson). There may be a few that I'm not remembering. My senior year I took British Literature. We read a lot of great literature in that class, but if I remember it correctly it was mostly from a textbook anthology. We read Beowulf and excerpts from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Of course there was Shakespeare. We covered lots of great poets (too numerous to list). I'm trying to remember if we read any novels. I honestly don't remember if we did. One of those years we read Brave New World, but I can't remember which one.

 

My very favorite class in high school was an elective that you were only allowed to take one time (maybe even it was just one semester?). It was called Novels. The entire class period was a free reading time in which we were allowed to read a book of our choice. Our grade was based on how many pages we read as compared to the rest of the class. I was always in competition for first place. We received credit for double pages for classics. It was during this time that I read Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and the Anne of Green Gables series. But I just didn't know about too many classics then. I wish there had been more of them in the school library or that some of my teachers would have introduced me to them.

 

I started reading Jane Austen right after I graduated from high school because of the movie Sense and Sensibility. And then I really just re-discovered the joy of classics and reading when I first found these boards.

 

I have read several classics over the past few years, but I still don't consider myself well-read. I have a lot of catching up to do. I still can't think too long or hard about all of those years that I spent reading The Babysitter's Club (out of ignorance of anything better) or it makes me feel very upset.

[Kris]

I always considered myself well-read. I hit the ground running with "Sally, Dick and Jane" and I've had my nose stuck in a book ever since! That said, I have *not* read many of the classics, and am enjoying them now. I did read the ones that were assigned reading in high school -- Great Expectations comes immediately to mind -- but my reading wasn't "organized."

 

And yes -- I actually read them. :D

[Desert Rat]

I think I was. As a teenager, I hated my English classes in PS. So my friend and I started our own book club (way before that was cool!) and we read Of Human Bondage and Sons and Lovers and Jane Eyre and heaps of others I can't recall. Then we met at our favorite used bookstore to discuss them. It was a lot of fun and I learned way more than I did in school where we spent an entire 2 months on Macbeth. I mean really, it IS the shortest play. 2 months?!

My boys and I read heaps aloud and I love the idea that we share something that I have always loved.

[Jennifer3141]

I've always loved to read. So I do consider myself fairly well-read, although there are a lot more classics I need to read.

 

That's I joined bookclubs.

 

I don't think I got much of this from institutional school though. The books I remember reading the most in high school were books I picked up along the way or my parents gave me to read.

 

I just finished, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest for my classics book club. I do not ever remember reading anything required in school that moved me like a book like that does. But Frank Herbert's, Dune changed my life in 7th grade. I happened to choose it for myself.

 

Jen

[tinag]

No. I don't remember reading a single book growing up except for the readers we had in school. :confused:

I don't even remember having any books in the house growing up. I do remember that when I would go to my grandma's house she would read to us when we were little.

[mcconnellboys]

I would say that I was a lot better read than many children of my time who grew up in similar circumstances (very small town libraries/schools in rural areas). But I was not what I would really consider truly well read.

[OhM]

:iagree:

 

Similar here - better read than my peers, but well read? Definitely not! (Still not as well read as I'd like to be.)

[Karenciavo]

Yes, I think I was. Every week after I got paid I would go to the book store and the record store. I worked my way through classic literature and classic rock. :D Dostoyevsky, Huxley, & Vonnegut were my favorites.

[Melinda in VT]

I wanted to be.

 

When I was about 10? 12? I found a book list in a church magazine for teenagers, and I set the goal to read every book on the list. (I can't remember if I finished the list or not, but it was a good source of suggestions when I was looking for a good book.)

 

Even with the list, I felt a bit adrift as a reader during my early teen years.

[Michele B]

 

Both my parents are big readers and I got alot of positive reinforcement for reading. I still remember my dad buying the whole Laura Ingalls Wilder set for me in 2nd grade. He was so proud of me! in about 8th grade I remember my mom leaving classics in my room. She said she wanted me to read them before some teacher ruined them for me. I have had to re-read them all now because a 14-year old cannot not process EVERYTHING in Tess of the D'urbervilles! (Thank goodness!;))

[elizabeth]

Aunt Twinkle(Lucy) was a wonderful librarian and had a fine sense regarding books. She gave me Little House in the Big Woods and a poetry book, All the Silver Pennies in first grade and it was off to the races for this kid.As a youngster, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Margerite Henry, Astrid Lindgren, Frank Baum and CSLewis with a bit of L.M. Alcott were the authors I spent most of my time with.My grandfather , Twinkle's brother also made his contribution to my tastes by intrducing me to the great adventure authors, Jack London, the Tom Swift books, Captain Horatio Hornblower and The Arabian Nights. He was a gem and felt that for most children it was best to put ideas before them and let them work the details out for themselves...in defense of his methodology despite spending most of my summers on his farm unsupervised I never needed a tetanus booster-it all worked out well. As a teenager-Agatha Christie for fun and James Fenimore Cooper, Eugene O Neill, Theodore Dreiser , Isaac Asimov and Chaim Potok , Isaac Bashevis Singer and many others. Those mentioned were my favorites. My parents both read constantly and we hildren only read things that were considered valuable to our development...of course since mother is the offspring of two agnostics both from a long line of Episocopalian priests prior to her parents- it made for an interesting battle regarding what was acceptable. My parents took us to the library daily during the summer and weekly during the school year as well as monthly trips to the bookshop in downtown Omaha , Ne. named for its proprietor Mr. Kieser. I do the same for our dd and feel that this is the greatest gift from my family, a deep abiding love and respect for the written word. To no one's surprise my mother is still reading constantly and being a rabble rouser in the best sense of the word. Aunt Twinkle and my Grandpa have both passed on but I think of them both nearly every day because of the joy they shared with me that I am now trying to share with my child in turn.

[mommylawyer]

I read EVERYTHING I was assigned. I also read in my free time, but I wasn't reading classics. I discovered my parents' hidden Stephen King collection when I was 9 or 10. I LOVED horror novels - I loved to be scared. So, I was well-read as far as that genre goes.

[Mom to Aly]

Yes, definitely well read, for many reasons. One, my academically, tremendously over-zealous father. Although he was a nuclear physicist, and thought only science or math was a real career, and literature was only for pleasure, he still believed it was important. I was made to read all of Shakespeare's plays the summer I was 9 (I read all but four--the "King's" never thrilled me), and tested on them by him, I read all of Charles Dickens the same summer. Reading was my passion, so none of this was a prob. This is just an example of the type of things he had me read. Every summer, the first day of vacation, he would take us to the B&N textbook store in Manhattan (it has been there forever--long before modern day B&N's), and buy us textbooks he would test us on throughout the summer--science, history, etc, and lit, especially for me, because I loved it so much and could read so fast.

 

I also started college when I was 15, and, although in my first BA I had pre-law and math majors, I did tons of courses in Eng Lit and World Lit, so I continued reading extensively. I started my second BA when I was 18, and majored in French Lang & Lit, & Creative Writ, and had plenty of lit in that one, too--one semester, I had to read 38 books--so I still read, all the time.

 

So, yes, I have always thought of myself as very well read. When I look at lists of classics hardly ever anything on them I haven't read at least once, a few I wish I hadn't read, a few I have read several times.

[Amy in NH]

I read a lot, but all the wrong books. Even though I thoroughly enjoyed the classic books assigned to us at school, I spent a great deal of time reading Stephen King. I wish I had had more guidance as a teen.

[Vida Winter]

My dh and I got to talking this evening while my dc were at a neighbors playing. We actually got more than 2 words in! :D Anyway, we started talking about reading and books we'd read as children or teens. My dh, whom I always assumed was much more "well read" than me...admitted to only "skimming" the majority of the books assigned to him in high school! :001_huh: He said he was just really good at getting the jist of the plotline based on discussions in class and could "read for the test"! Here I always considered him this literature "guru"! I thought back to my own high school days and had to admit that I "skimmed" the books as well...using the comprehension questions we often had for homework as a guide. So, how many of you would consider yourselves "well read" as children/teens? AND, how many of you are playing "catch up" now and reading, for the first time, those great literary works that we're making our own dc read? :D Come on now...fess up! It's time to come clean! LOL! I'll start: I never read Tom Sawyer, Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, Huck Finn, Scarlett Letter, Great Expectations, Tale of Two Cities, Lord of the Rings series or Chron. of Narnia, etc. Only book I remember reading cover to cover is Watership Down! I'm so bad. BUT, I'll say that I'm interested in reading them NOW!

 

Yes. I think I was well-read as a child. I was an only child and we moved a lot. It was my goal to read every book in the library.:001_rolleyes:

 

I read a lot of classics in AP English and on my own in high school, and as an adult I try to have one going at all times. But there are so many, so very many that I haven't read. I still feel like I'm on the tip of the iceberg, but as long as I'm alive I'll keep chipping away at it.

 

~Dana

[sdWTMer]

Well, I was if you consider Reader's Digest well read! :D Ha! No, I wasn't but I am now!

[Reya]

I'd read more "greats" by the time I graduated high school than most MAs in English. But that was my decision, on my time.

[5knights3maidens]

I love to read and always have. My dad has read so many books it is unbelieveable. I think I read alot more of National Geographic and any types of magazines my dad had...lots of history. Now, I'm also reading the kids books ;) because i think they are really good and I didn't really know about them.

[Mom2jnb]

I don't remember everything we were assigned. And I know I skimmed....:( But, I do remember the Great Gatsby, A Separate Peace and The Catcher and the Rye...thoes I read completely. I do not remember the ones I skimmed.

 

My Dh doesn't remember a thing he was required to read in PS and he said that is why he wants me to homeschool.

 

Alison

[melmac]

Yes and no. Yes, more so than most of the others my age, but no when compared to really well read people of the world.

[TravelingChris]

I think I was well read. Lot so much in elementary school but I got better by fourth grade. By Junior High, I decided that my education in school was not good enough and I needed to supplement it myself. I started collected old textbooks to study and found some lists of books that well-read teens should read and started to read these. Now I read a lot so not only was I reading classics but also mystery classics and old science fiction and lots of other stuff too. My love of reading has never stopped and I am usually reading several books at a time. I am in two book clubs here and I really enjoy those.

[tibbyl]

In the backwoods, redneck, low-income, poorly-educated hamlet of my youth, if you could read your Cracker Jack box in one sitting, you were considered well-read. So by community standards, I was well-read.

 

Honestly can't say that I enjoyed most of the classics I read in high school. But what was more relevant to me was reading about the historical, political, and social impact of great works of literature.

[Rosie_0801]

Thanks to a teacher friend/ neighbour (who was my maths teacher, not my English teacher!) I was very well read by local standards. Not that that was difficult or anything. By the standards of this board, I'm a bit of a dope!

Oh, and I really need to say I thought "The Great Gatsby" was one of the worst books I've ever had to read. I found the characters so horrible I couldn't even enjoy disliking them. Maybe now I'm all "grown up" I would be able to appreciate the story in its historical context a bit better, but I'm really not feeling inspired to try.

:)

Rosie