Since this week was Children’s Book Week, and since I found this meme and copied it at Kate’s Book Blog, I thought today would be an appropriate time to answer the questions. Scroll down for the Saturday Review of Books.

1. How old were you when you learned to read and who taught you?
I learned to read in first grade, public school, six years old, no kindergarten for me.

2. Did you own any books as a child? If so, what’s the first one that you remember owning? If not, do you recall any of the first titles that you borrowed from the library?
I don’t know what the first book I owned was, but I remember the first books I owned and lost. I had a whole set of blue-covered Nancy Drew mysteries, numbers 1-3?, and when we moved the summer after I finished fifth grade we left the Nancy Drew books behind for some reason. I still miss those books. I think some of the first books I borrowed from the library were the Snipp, Snapp, Snurr books and the Flicka Ricka, Dicka books.

3. What’s the first book that you bought with your own money?
What money? Honestly, I don’t know. It was probably something from Scholastic’s Arrow book club.

4. Were you a re-reader as a child? If so, which book did you re-read most often?
I didn’t have much time for re-reading as a child. There were too many titles calling to me from the library shelves.

5. What’s the first adult book that captured your interest and how old were you when you read it?
In my library, children were not allowed into the adult section until they were . . . I’m not sure what magic age. As a teenager, I checked out some books from the (one) shelf of YA books that marked the boundary between the children’s room and the adult section. At some point, about high school age maybe, I ventured into the adult section, and no one stopped me. I think I read some Agatha Christie and Rex Stout mysteries to start out. Then, one day, I checked out Exodus by Leon Uris, and I remember it being exciting, but somewhat shocking. In one scene, two unmarried young people who are “in love” but also in the midst of a war, find time to go off into the hills and make love with the excuse that one or both of them might be dead before they can get married. I thought this was a poor excuse for a foolish decision at the time, and come to think of it, I still do. But I loved Exodus.

6. Are there children’s books that you passed by as a child that you have learned to love as an adult? Which ones?
I never read The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame as a child, and I don’t know if I would have enjoyed it then. I now think it’s a delightful book. I preferred action to description back then.