Your First Book Addiction.

Like other children in their elementary school, my childhood book was Hardy Boys. The truth is, I still get excited when other people talk about it with me, or even so much as mention it. People who were with me last RoD event would know, given that a handful of us spent a good half an hour reliving childhoodz and Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew.

I have an extremely fuzzy memory of my childhood, but I remember that my first foray into obsessive reading came about because of Hardy Boys. Of course, it wasn’t my FIRST book. My first was Peter Rabbit, by Beatrix Potter. It was a very heavy, very large, very thick, and very beautiful book. My parents were cheap back then, so I reread it countless, countless, countless of times before they took pity on me and dug out the random kiddy books in the attic (which belonged to an uncle who had kids older than I was). My parents apparently thought that at Grade 3, I’d like reading books like Cat in the Hat.

When they finally realized that, yes, their baby had outgrown 3-words-per-page books and needed longer things to occupy herself with ( and that it kept her from fighting with her brothers), they handed me a paperback copy of Hardy Boys. Ka-ching! I was in love. For some reason or another, our bookshelves in our attic had a lot of Hardy Boys paperbacks. I went through dozens of them in the following days, weeks, months, until I finished our stash.

I turned to the library in our school. I was delighted to know they had dozens of Hardy Boys titles, too. I would borrow one at recess, finish it by dismissal, then borrow another one again to take home. Seeing as I finished the stash in a month, I went through them all again. Apparently, I was a HUGE fangirl at 8 (but it can also be said that I didn’t have a life at 8, but shhhh). I loved Frank a lot, and always thought Joe was a jock. Chet Morton was often annoying, but Phil Cohen was my secret crush.

I went through other books, mostly all the other detective stories I could find in the library, regardless if they were for my age group or not. I went through Enid Blyton’s stuff, too, and tried out Nancy Drew for a while (my ultimate OTP was Frank x Nancy, in the crossover books). I had a short run-in with Sweet Valley High, the occasional Goosebumps, and as many books as I could get my hands on. (I even stole some of them from our library, but that was covered in the other post.)

Eventually, to my complete and utter delight, I found out that another room in our house had a secret – one of the untouched shelves had the Hardy Boys hardbound books, about 90% complete (as well as a huge pile of National Geographic magazines). I was in heaven! I suddenly had a collection! They were older than I was and I adored old books back then (they were cheap, haha, and I liked to fancy myself a collector). Most importantly — I could finally read Book One, the START of it all! The original 57 were in my hands! (Well, about 45 , since the 0s are missing) The books didn’t really last long. Finished all of them in about a month. The pride of having that many of the books never faded, though, and they’re still with me.

My parents were lenient enough to buy me a few more paperbacks, but I have a suspicion that the only reason they let me was because Goodwill way back sold them for 10 pesos each. Then I sort of ran out of Hardy Boys to read, and went off to other books again (and anime. Oh, anime). In grade six and first year high school, my favorites were the Three Musketeers, Sherlock Holmes, and the Golden Compass. There were the classics, like The Little Men, The Secret Garden, and The Prince and the Pauper. I had my Mills and Boons stint (my mother’s books when she was still young), a mild erotica stage (my uncle’s, I assume), and a Danielle Steel phase. Lots and lots of romance, some fantasy, a bit of sci-fi, a handful of suspense, and crack. The fondness for detective stories and crime fiction remained.

I’ve long outgrown it, of course. Hardy Boys eventually turned to ~~fanfiction~~ heavier books. Still, I have a deep-seated affection for Hardy Boys, and I still remember Frank Hardy as the first ever fictional character I ever crushed on, never mind that he was eternally eighteen years old.

So my childhood was Hardy Boys. What about you?

If you want to contribute your articles about your reading habits/quirks/meme, etc, etc, just e-mail me at yukitsuyk@yahoo.com and I’ll put it up for you~ Also, I thought today was Thursday. Ehehe. orz

Last 5 posts by Yukitsu

Reader's Quirks (Sorta) - November 13th, 2007
Adventurous Me - November 2nd, 2007
Abridged or Unabridged? - October 19th, 2007
More on Coveting Books - October 4th, 2007
Harry Potter Discussion Last July 13! - July 15th, 2007

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October 12, 2007 Written by: Yukitsu | Filed Under Books, Miscellany, Reading

Comments

11 Responses to “Your First Book ~~Addiction~~.”

Drug Addiction » Blog Archive » Your First Book Addiction. on October 12th, 2007 6:30 am

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bhex on October 12th, 2007 7:35 am

i think mine was sir arthur conan doyle’s a study in scarlet. i went through a very long sherlock holmes phase as a kid. then i went through a very long middle-earth phase.

detective stories are yay i suppose i would’ve been addicted to the hardy boys and nancy drew if i’d started reading them first… i remember they were very big among the other kids my age.
Mia on October 12th, 2007 10:06 am

6 to 7: Shel Silverstein! Madeleine L’Engle! :D I also liked Beverly Cleary’s stuff a lot.

8 to 10: David Eddings XD Sherlock Holmes — my mother bought me a two-volume compilation of all the stories and novels. Lewis Carroll. Louisa May Alcott.
tin on October 12th, 2007 10:28 am

… HEIDI. I remember wanting to live high up in the Swiss Alps. More than that, I wanted to taste Grandfather’s famous bread. (Non-sequitur — I stopped reading Anna Karenina because I kept getting hungry.)

Also, Five Little Peppers, the series.

Sherlock Holmes, ditto. My school had a very extensive & eclectic (by which I mean TOTALLY UNSUITED FOR KIDS WHAT WAS APULEIUS DOING IN THERE?) library which I tore through. Of course I had to re-read most of these books. George Eliot, for one, because I totally got the wrong idea about… was it Daniel Deronda?
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Yukitsu on October 13th, 2007 2:34 am

SHERLOCK HOLMES, YAY! I thought he’s not very popular here. o.o Along with the Hardy Boys set I unearthed was a hardbound set of the compilations for Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (and more). So I pretty much dug out my complete compilation of Sherlock Holmes out of NOWHERE. XD BEST THING EVER! Took forever to finish, too. >_>;
bhex on October 13th, 2007 4:56 am

@yuki - well, holmes books certainly weren’t popular in my school XD i was just lucky that my father was a huge crime fiction buff and had at least three good sherlock holmes books in his collection.

funny thing was, i did try other mystery authors after doyle - queen, christie, stout, sayers, even chandler and hammett, but i never got into the genre. just really had a big kiddie crush on sherlock holmes.

sometime before the middle-earth phase, i got into SF in a big way, though i can’t remember which work exactly got me reading.
Mia on October 13th, 2007 6:20 am

@Yukeh: Holmes was my first literary character crush XDDDDD
giyenah on October 13th, 2007 8:19 am

I started reading Stephen King at 10 years old. Before that, it was Roald Dahl.

… I learned cruelty very early.

(Hell yes! to Sherlock Holmes love though Watson makes my young girly heart pitterpatter even now.
Yukeh on October 15th, 2007 7:00 am

Holmes x Watson. *cough*
jon on October 15th, 2007 7:12 am

Hardy Boys for me when I was 10. Madami kasi nun sa library. Sometimes, binabasa ko rin ang Sweet Valley High at Sweet Dreams ng mga pinsan kong babae pag wala sila. Then Mills and Boon. Pero mas addict ako sa komiks noon (especially Funny Komiks).