The First Book I Ever Read?

Do you remember the first book you ever read? I mean, the actual first one, and not one about watching Spot run?

I do; and at an attempt for originality, it was The Frog Prince.

I remember this book very specifically. We ordered it from Scholastic in a two-pack where the other book was “Harry Hates Shopping”–another book that has created significant memories in my life, but we aren’t here today to talk about those, haha.

So anyway, this book arrived sometime near the end of Kindergarten, and, to my little kid brain, it was a whopper. It had full-on chapters–I couldn’t read a chapter book, I was in KINDERGARTEN!

(Full disclosure, I was in Kindergarten so you’re going to have to ask my dad if he remembers it the same way I do, haha).

I don’t know how the subject came up, or why my dad decided I was going to read this book to him that summer; but it did, and he did, and if you know my dad, you will know that that was the end of the discussion.

What I do remember is following him around the yard each night when he got home from work (while he weeded the garden and whatnot), painstakingly reading him each page of the day–usually after having practiced with mom for most of the morning, knowing that if I messed up, not only would I have to read this page again the next day, but I’d also have to read the next one.

Sure enough, day after day, page after page, we spent the summer reading that very first chapter book; and the rest, as they say, is history. I don’t ever remember struggling to read a book again. After that first book, I was a regular bibliophile, reading when I should have been cleaning my room or working on homework. Anything I could get my hands on, I was reading it.

And it all started one summer with a story about a girl who kissed a frog.

What was the first book you read? Do you remember reading it, or what it was about? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!