The question posted by The Blue Bookcase at the literary blog hop is:
How did you find your way to reading literary fiction and nonfiction?
Reading is like talking – I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t talk or read. My parents loved books, bought me books and took me to the library way before I went to school. So I have always had books and have always borrowed books from the library.
My early reading was all given to me by my parents and relatives – books such as the Heidi books, What Katy Did, Peter Pan, books by Beatrix Potter, Mabel Lucy Atwell and Enid Blyton and so on. I loved books of fairy tales, myths and legends, the tales of Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm and of Brer Rabbit. Later I read books by Malcolm Salville, Louisa May Alcott, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rosemary Sutcliffe and Lewis Carroll, books that I owned or borrowed from the library.
I remember seeing a TV dramatisation of Jane Eyre and being terrified of the mad woman in the attic and the scene showing her death in the fire has remained in my mind ever since (I must have been about 12 years old as we didn’t have a TV before then). I don’t think that led me to the Charlotte Bronte’s book but a TV serialisation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice certainly did – I loved it and was thrilled when my mother gave me her copy to read. It has been a favourite ever since and I still have her copy. I always loved getting books for birthday and Christmas presents and my aunties all knew that was what I liked best. They bought me books such as Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations.
School also introduced me to more books, such as Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham, the Mayor of Casterbridge and other books by by Thomas Hardy, more books by Charles Dickens, more Jane Austen novels, Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell, the plays of Shakespeare and Christopher Fry, Moliere, Hugo and books by Antoine De Saint-Exupery and Alexandre Dumas (in French lessons).
As for non-fiction, apart from a set of 4 books called The World of the Children, which is full of fascinating facts about nature, science, art, books, music and many more things such as making things out of paper, card tricks, the night sky, and cities and countries around the world. I don’t remember reading much non- fiction at all until I was older and read books on nature, history, biographies and so on. Much later doing Open University courses introduced me to books on philosophy, religion, and art history.
So the sources that have influenced my reading include my parents, family, libraries, school, college and university, television and radio, and friends – including bloggers.
BooksPlease 
Without meaning to it was my Grandparents, with their classic series, which to them served a merely ornamental purpose. I remember my granddad telling me that I should be out kicking a ball around instead of sat indoors reading these books.
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Margaret – Thanks for sharing your journey to literacy. I think for most of us, our development as readers has been profoundly influenced by our families. I know my first reading, like yours, was the set of books we had in the home.
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Interesting! I transitioned to reading non fiction early – starting in the 6th grade, if my parents were displeased with my grades, I was restricted from reading fiction. Non fiction was acceptable though.
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