fictional story I ever wrote...was in 2nd grade and was the first day of a foal (I didn't have a horse...I just imagined it). The first grown-up book I read was "The Black Arrow." It was illustrated with color plates and I was very impressed. I don't know why those stand out in my memory as writing/reading related firsts. I certainly don't remember the first children's book I read.

Well, it wasn't exactly fiction well, perhaps it was, but the first thing I have a clear memory of writing was a grade school assignment. Had to be fourth grade or earlier. The assignment was to clip a picture out of a magazine and then write a paragraph describing it. I clipped a picture of a kitchen. The refrigerator was prominent but there was also a dog's toy on the floor. So I wrote a story from an old man's perspective about how choked up he got every time he saw old Rover's toy there on the kitchen floor since the dog passed away. It was a real tear jerker. I think I got a C- on it because I failed to describe the picture. I remember thinking at the time that the teacher didn't know a good story when she saw one. It was brilliant, really, considering it was coming from a ten year old. I never have been good at following directions. As to the first adult book I ever read that depends on what you consider an adult book. Probably Tom Sawyer, but some may classify that as a children's book. Right after that, I read Huckleberry Finn, which I think we can all agree is for adults. Some of my favorite Anne McCaffrey books are her children's books; Dragon Song and Dragon Singer. I read them as an adult. jon

The first story I ever remember writing was in the first year of primary school. It was entitled "Why I Don't Like Milk." I would count this as fiction if I was being kind, an outright lie if I'm being honest. I did like milk, I just didn't want my compulsory quarter pint bottle of milk we were made to have every morning. I still have the exercise book it is written in but I will spare you the embarrassment of reading the whole 58 words of this masterpiece. If I tell you that 15 of them were the same word in a row, you will have a very very very very very good idea of how truly terrible it was :-) It didn't work either, I still had to drink the milk. As to the first 'adult' book? I can't remember being unable to read. My father started reading everything aloud to me when I was old enough to sit up, running his finger under each word as he said it aloud, so by the time I was four I could read anything. Sadly, that is not the same as understanding a single word of it. I suspect the first book I ever read was therefore some extraordinarliy dull tome on statistics. At the time, he was studying to become an auditor. I got "The Hobbit" when I was six years old, and at the time, I considered it a very adult story book. Then as a teenager, I thought it was a childrens book. Now, I'm not so sure. I went on to read "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy and thereafter drove people insane with my illustrated adventures of Bilbo (I never liked Frodo) all in smudged chalk colours on my little blackboard. Shanna :-)

Sounds like it was a really really really really really really cool story, Shanna. Sure you don't want to post it? :-) Nothing of mine survived from my grade school years. Guess my mom was not that sentimental. I just had an interesting discussion with my wife regarding this thread. Just what is an adult book vs. a children's book? My brother sent me a bunch of books when I was 10 or younger and I read them. The only title I can remember form the collection was Treasure Island. Black Beauty might have been in there too and that might be where I got Tom Sawyer. Now is TI an adult book, or a children's book? Beats me. Seems a lot of folks (books store managers for one) seem to think if the main character is a child then it's a kids book. Not necessarily the case. The first book I can remember reading was Babar. Love Babar to this day. What a wonderful set of books he did. jon

hmm..I'm sure I wrote something earlier, but all I remember was my Creative Writing class in college; I was the only prose writer, everyone else wrote poetry..bad poetry..;) I remember finally cluing in that my teacher was in a particular studies department, so I wrote a sci-fi (don't I always..;) story that catered to her specialty, and changed my grade from a 'c' to an 'a'..folks, know your audience, and write to that..;)
First adult book? gad..I still have some of my first adult..oh..you mean mature..;) hmm..Dickens, probably, I think I read some 'adult' sci-fi the World Inside was one of the earliest..though I admit to reading a book called Huckelberry Hashimoto which had 'adult humor'..made a lot more sense once I was old enough to figure out the dirty words..;)

I can remember writing little bits of crap from about third grade on. I define "little bits of crap" as small naratives to go along with my fantasy car illustrations. There must have been something to the pictures though because I actually am an illustrator now. In fifth grade I started a small newspaper called "Hot News". It was very small. I ran two (2) editions. Hand written in pencil on tablet paper. All the stories written by me, mostly a written account of the gossip that was going around the school anyway.
The first real story I wrote was in seventh grade. My brother had to write a story for halloween. I wrote it for him because I came up with better stories than he did.

The first adult book I can actually remember reading was "The Red Badge of Courage" but I would have been about eleven then. I didn't read much as a little kid. I recall thinking that I had to read so much in school as it was. Why the hell would I want to read on my own time?

The first book I ever read was one of a series of small yellow books much like the old dick and jane books. Very much like them. They cameas a series, and I remember being in kindergarten and first grade and being incredibly proud of my collection. I recall most vividly one day when I had finally read them all and I carried that incredibly heavy stack of them out into the living room and laid each of them out side by side in a little grid pattern very carefully and in order and turned to my mother and said "fal gillith ma credii cho somi ni sath ra tiwao" -- which meant something like hey, Mom, check out everything I read! but in my own language of the moment. She smiled and said she was very proud of me., My Dad leaned over and counted them and nodded and smiled and then looked at her and said I really needed to speak english. I don't remembe what they were called, either, just that they were yeloow covered and filled my head with all kinds of imaginative things. The first story that actually made it out of me wasn't until I was in fifth or sixth grade. It was a science fiction story about a ship landing on a planet and the crew members trying to figure out what was killing them one by one, ending up with a great conflict at the end between the captain, his buddy, and the monster. I think I'd seen Forbidden planet a few times too many... My first "adult" novel was "All Creatures Great and Small" by Herriot. I had started reading it right after finishing the "red dog" stories about a bunch of boys and their dogs (sigh... I'd already run out of black beauty and black stallion and nancy drew, so I was forced to go into boy stuff, It was so shameful I hid them under my pillows). I wanted to be a vet in pre-war england right up until the part where he stuck his arm up the rear of a cow...

They weren't Golden Books, were they? My brother had a collection of them that were well read by the time they came to me. Like Shoshanna, I don't remember not being able to read. My brother practiced his reading on me when I was pretty small...I think that helped. I know the first thing I wrote. My mother regretted teaching me how to print my name, because I then proceeded to write and CARVE my name into everything that had anything faintly resembling a writing surface (including tables, hangers, chairs).

"because I then proceeded to write and CARVE my name into everything" Yikes! Sounds like our oldest daughter. She was a one person furniture destruction unit - not to mentions walls and floors. Between her and our dog (he litterally chewed the leg off a table!) we were lucky to have any furnitre left in the house at all. Now I was known to write on funiture when I was small, but it was on the back of furniture - where no one would easily see it - and in chalk, which could be washed off. Emelie, on the other hand, perfered to use writing insturments like the tines of a fork. Your mother has our sympathy. :-) jon

I still have some of the hangers. :)

They may very well have been Golden books, Dialyn. When she died year before last, I remember hoping against hope she'd saved some of them, but it was no use. I really adored those things. I wrote not only my real name, but my nickname as well, and on everything! I used pencils, crayons, nail polish (oh, did my butt hurt on that one!), knives, spoons, forks, fingerpaint -- essentially, if it was something I could use to make a mark with, and I had it in my hand, I did so. My oldest daughter (who is the other really "creative" one in the family) does that same thing -- even today. (and she's 23 going on 17). And I'll bet you use those hangers, too....

I do. And consider that those hangers are over 50 years old now. Good craftsmanship! And I guess, in a sense, my words have lasted that long as well. ;) Not so enduring were the "books" I wrote before I could write. I would fold pieces of paper in half and then scribble on the pages. I probably killed a few trees writing stories no one (including me) could read.

hey -- do those words count towards that "million" you have to write before the good stuff comes out? gee, I hope so...

It would be nice to think so....LOL!

I learned to read very young. I remember reading fairy tales in kindergarten. I do not remember my first book, or my first adult book. I remember the first "big kids book" I got out of the school library. It was Tarzan of the Apes. I count my first "story" (definately not the first thing I've written, nor the first thing I finished that wasn't a school assignment, because I never finished it, but it's a first anyway, because it was the one that made me figure out that I liked writing stories), as "The Young Warriors" technically a Star Wars fanfic, written when I was about 12. I've started typing it up, and what I've transcribed so far is posted on my webpage.