Book Blogger Hop
This prompt was submitted by Mark @ Carstairs Considers:
What was your favorite genre to read as a child? Do you still read that genre, or do you read something else now?
My reading tastes have been called “immature” and “popular” (as in for the hoi polloi, not as in well-known—a glance at my blog stats tells me that on a daily basis), so it will come as no surprise to many of you that my tastes as a child mirror my tastes now. I had a lot of fun, actually, over the last couple of days thinking about this question before finding time to sit down and answer this. There are actually a lot of precursors to what I read today in what I read as a child. I was tempted to sit down and look at a good number of those in this post, but that wouldn’t really be answering the question. Also, that’d end up taking me longer than I want to/can afford to spend on this post. Hopefully, I get around to writing it down—if only for my sake, I’d really like to work out some of this.
Anyway—my favorite genre as a child? Mystery/Detective novels. Leroy “Encyclopedia” Brown and Sally Kimball; Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw, Bob Andrews (The Three Investigators); Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny Alden (the Boxcar Children); the Sugar Creek Gang (particularly when they were solving a mystery—loosely defined); Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson; whatever Ellen Raskin novels that I could get my hands on. Those were my almost constant companions, those stories were my bread and butter. There were others, too, but the names of the authors didn’t stick for whatever reason (I can picture some covers, but, that’s about it). Possibly because I didn’t re-read those authors with the frequency I re-read those.
Essentially, if the library book had a yellow sticker depicting a figure in a Fedora and Overcoat or a white sticker with a fingerprint and a magnifying lens on it—I read it. And likely re-read it. I know in my weekly trips to the library (4-5x a week during the summer), I’d often just wander the shelves looking for those stickers. I read a lot of dross because of that (arguably some of what I listed above fits). Oddly, I never clicked with the Hardy Boys, and bowed to social pressure to never give Nancy Drew a chance (I still regret that).
Anyway—do I still read that genre? Oh, yeah. Anyone who’s read more than 2 posts on this site probably knows that. I’ve mentioned before, that I pretty much realized I was a reader who always needed a book around while reading Encyclopedia Brown, Boy Detective (although I was pretty voracious before that, I just realize it). Maybe that’s where my brain got wired that way (although I vaguely recall a couple of other detective-ish books before that), but to this day, Mystery/Detective/Crime Fiction is my default genre. I guess I’m still that kid in the backseat of my parents’ station wagon watching Encyclopedia and Sally triumph over Bugs Meany and the rest or wandering the stacks at the Payette Public Library looking for those yellow or white stickers.
And you? Have your tastes shifted?
Bob Germaux
For years now, H.C., I’ve mentioned on my Amazon Bio that as a child, I loved reading both the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries, which probably played at least a part in my writing the Jeremy Barnes and Daniel Hayes mysteries several decades later. I also enjoyed a series of books about a young pitcher (first name Mel, I think; can’t recall the last name). In those days (the mid-to-late fifties), I devoured anything baseball-related. None of my books (so far) is about baseball, but in the sixties, I had a serious basketball jones, and I used a lot of those experiences when I wrote “Hard Court,” the fourth JB novel. Finally, when I was sixteen, my father introduced me to P.G. Wodehouse’s Bertie and Jeeves books. I loved the humor in those stories, and in all my books (even the Daniel Hayes serial killer series), I’ve tried to inject some humor. Of course, I went full-humor in many of the hundred or so essays in my Grammar Sex Trilogy books. Hey, this was a lot of fun, H.C. Thanks! (And maybe give Nancy and Hardy Boys a look sometime:)
HCNewton
Yeah, it’s pretty clear you were into both sports to some extent. 🙂
Another Bertie and Jeeves fan–you lot are everywhere. I just don’t get it. I’m glad you (and the rest) enjoy them–and may your tribe increase. I cannot understand the appeal.
Who knows? I might give Ms. Drew and the Boys another try at some point. It’d fit in really well with a soon-to-be-announced feature.