I have no idea what my first book was.

Dylan reading Sammy The Seal.

(Ok, it's not really reading - he's got the book memorized. But still pretty damn cute, I think.)

My first book was "The Amiable Giant". I liked it because it had my name in the title.

The earliest book of mine that I still have is my copy of The Reluctant Dragon, but that only dates to 2nd grade or so.

ETA: Oh, I do remember sitting with my sister over our family copy of Ferdinand the Bull (the red cover with the Munro Leaf illustration on it) and reading it together. I was probably in kindergarten then. We nicknamed our dog Ferdinand (even though the dog was a she) just because she was such a lazy dog, which English bulldogs tend to be.

Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators

Okay, help me out here - wasn't there a story in one of those books where the kids were kidnapped and part of the coded message they sent home was "Peggy's as good a name as any" - referring to some non-existent pet or something - which was supposed to translate into "Pegasus" and give some clue to where they were? I HATED that, it has always stuck with me as just so illogical. I think that's the first time I got kicked right out of a story and went, "Huh?"

Generally I liked those books, but I think I read them when I was a little older and a little more aware as a reader. I'm sure there were plenty of "huh?" moments in the Cherry Ames books, too, but I zoomed right over them.

Black Stallion went alien!?! I definitely didn't read far enough in that series.

I don't have my first book but I do have my first "chapter book": Key to the Treasure by Peggy Parish. I loooooved that book. So much so that my dad got sick of seeing me read it and put it on top of the fridge so I'd have to tea something else. Years later I found out there was a sequel--had he only known!

Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators.

I went through a bunch of those when I was a kid. My biggest disappointment (as with Scooby Doo) was that the supernatural stuff was always faked.

A childhood (early teen era) book that made a big impression: anybody else ever read House of Stairs?

I think I only read the first Black Stallion book. Now I really want to find the rest and read all of them.

A childhood (early teen era) book that made a big impression: anybody else ever read House of Stairs?

Yes! I actually came here for help figuring out what it was -- I had read it and loved it in seventh grade.

That was my first encounter with principles of operant conditioning/behavior modification (though I can't remember how they labeled it in the book). I think I still have a copy of that in my shelves.

Makes note to self to check when I get home tonight.