On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 09:23:27 -0700 (PDT), "bayno...@yahoo.com"
<bayn...@gmail.com> wrote: >On Jul 5, 10:44 am, P. Taine <u...@domaine.invalid> wrote: >> Read, or read to? The first book I read myself was one of the ERB Mars books, >> probably "A Princess of Mars". I would guess second or third grade, about 1942. >> But before that my mother (who gave me the ERB) had read the Alice books, >> Wonderland/Looking Glass, and Kingsley's "Water Babies" I think I started on >> Amazing stories a year or two later.
>You know what was some good stuff, warped & ruined by subsequent film >perversions?? The "Doctor Dolittle" series.
Oh yes, that was in the house as was the *real* Winnie-the-Pooh, and fairytale books, some of which I can't remember the titles of anymore. (At 74 some of the info has leaked out.) And Tarzan, and Pelucidar (sp?), etc. My mother was a ERB fan, big time.
On Jul 5, 9:23 am, "bayno...@yahoo.com" <bayn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 5, 10:44 am, P. Taine <u...@domaine.invalid> wrote:> Read, or read to? The first book I read myself was one of the ERB Mars books, > > probably "A Princess of Mars". I would guess second or third grade, about 1942. > > But before that my mother (who gave me the ERB) had read the Alice books, > > Wonderland/Looking Glass, and Kingsley's "Water Babies" I think I started on > > Amazing stories a year or two later.
> You know what was some good stuff, warped & ruined by subsequent film > perversions?? The "Doctor Dolittle" series.
The first sf I read was the Doctor Doolittle books. I read them all when I was in grammar school, but didn't realize they were sf.
Later, when I was about 12 or 13, one of my dad's friends at work gave him some copies of Galaxy and Amazing magazines for me, and about the same time I received as a gift Clarke's 'Islands in the Sky' in the Winston science fiction series.
In article <MPG.22d992242dd6fc42989...@news.west.earthlink.net>, k...@see.sig.invalid says...
> In article <7c73f095-d748-43f0-be1e-662cdb881e02@ > 34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, bayn...@gmail.com says...
> _Rocket Ship Galileo_ by Robert Heinlein. (Probably in 2nd grade - I > don't recall for sure.) The only Heinlien on my school library
Well, SF anyway. I blasted through the fairytales in the kids section at my local library as soon as I discovered the place. Whether this was before or after RSG, I've NO idea. -- Kay Shapero Signature munged - to email me use kay at domain of my website, below. http://www.kayshapero.net
>>> Well, I thought they were good. The books, that is --- though >>> the Rex Harrison film wasn't so bad IMO. But a friend of mine, >>> when the books were mentioned (this was around 1970) said that >>> they were horrible, bigoted, biased *anti-Russian* diatribes. >>> Now, I don't remember anything about Russians in the books at >>> all. But it's been years. Can anyone remember? >> Anti-Russian? Makes no sense to me at all.
> Me neither, but that's what she *said*.
There were, I believe, references to "Bolshevist conspiracies" (along with anarchists) in at least one of the books.
On Sat, 5 Jul 2008 07:30:23 -0700 (PDT), "bayno...@yahoo.com"
<bayn...@gmail.com> wrote: >Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was >still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself, >where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is >there more like it? >I was in fourth grade.
I can remember reading the Mushroom Planet and Shy Stegasaur books, but the book I cite as my gateway drug that made me a lifetime sf reader was The Stars Are Ours by Norton, in an Ace Double around 1955-56 (so I would have been 7-8).
When I was ten, my mother gave me a SFBC membership for Chrsitmas, with the Conklin anthology as the first books, That led me to hunt down a whole lot of authors (Poul Anderson, John Wyndham, Alferd Bester, Van Vogt, and on and on, that was, and is, a truly worthwhile anthology), -- I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. (Bene Gesserit)
>>>> Well, I thought they were good. The books, that is --- though >>>> the Rex Harrison film wasn't so bad IMO. But a friend of mine, >>>> when the books were mentioned (this was around 1970) said that >>>> they were horrible, bigoted, biased *anti-Russian* diatribes. >>>> Now, I don't remember anything about Russians in the books at >>>> all. But it's been years. Can anyone remember? >>> Anti-Russian? Makes no sense to me at all.
>> Me neither, but that's what she *said*.
> There were, I believe, references to "Bolshevist conspiracies" (along >with anarchists) in at least one of the books.
O.....kay, that might be it.
Dorothy J. Heydt Vallejo, California djhe...@kithrup.com
On Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:24:58 -0700, William George Ferguson
<wmgfr...@newsguy.com> wrote: >I can remember reading the Mushroom Planet and Shy Stegasaur books, but the >book I cite as my gateway drug that made me a lifetime sf reader was The >Stars Are Ours by Norton, in an Ace Double around 1955-56 (so I would have >been 7-8).
I suppose we all have F&SF of an earlier age than when we "discover" it. Magic School busses, talking animals, and such were just part of what everybody read.
> I suppose we all have F&SF of an earlier age than when we "discover" > it. Magic School busses, talking animals, and such were just part of > what everybody read.
Sure -- if you count things like "Jack and the Beanstalk" as Fantasy, I read it at the age of five. Unambiguously SF... definitely read by third grade, possibly by second.
On Jul 5, 7:30 am, "bayno...@yahoo.com" <bayn...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Mine was Heinlein's "Have Spacesuit, Will Travel", so long ago it was > still fairly new. I was amazed, enthralled, thrilled; I asked myself, > where have they been keeping this stuff? Have they been hiding it? Is > there more like it? > I was in fourth grade.
First read to me at three: _The Hobbit_ followed by _The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe_.
First read on my own, Sendak's _Where the Wild Things Are_ around four. _A Wrinkle in Time_ and _The Forgotten Door_ came later along with _Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH_ and _The Silver Crown_, also by O'Brien. These were second to fourth grade.
> In article <7c73f095-d748-43f0-be1e-662cdb881e02@ > 34g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, bayn...@gmail.com says...
> _Rocket Ship Galileo_ by Robert Heinlein. (Probably in 2nd grade - I > don't recall for sure.) The only Heinlien on my school library > bookshelf, alas, though I found more when I searched further afield. > Meanwhile, back at home I noticed that the contents of one bookcase in > the living room were also science fiction, and gleefully browsed my way > through Dad's collection over the next year or so. That and took > advantage of the fact that I got home from school several hours before > he got home from work and was thus able to snag the latest issue of > Analog from the mail and get it half read before he arrived. :)
I also got into magazibne sf quite early. At around nine I got hold of acopy of Galaxy and one of Authentic. A bit later (not sure if I was ten by then or still nine) I found New Worlds #65, containing James White's "Sector General". This was important less for the stories that for the cover. The tentacled creature (illustrating SG) became my mental picture of an alien for years after. When I got hold of Eric Trank Russell's _Men Martians and Machines_, I pictured his Martians as looking like thta, even though they had ten tentacles instead of six.
When I was ten, my Dad got posted to Gibraltar, and a second hand shop there had a lot of sf, esp New Worlds and Astounding. As the Public Library had lots of anthologies, including may Grayson ones by Bleiler and Dikty, etc, I never looked back after that.
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough, England
Q) In the Roman Civil Wars, why did all the bachelors fight for Sulla?
Discounting outright "little kids'" books like the Mushroom Planet ones, it would have been either Lester del Rey's THE RUNAWAY ROBOT or Robert Silverberg's REVOLT ON ALPHA C. This was when I was in the third or fourth grade and at this late date I can't rememebr which one I encountered first.
