As an adult, it’s been a constant source of frustration to me that there are huge gaps in my knowledge when it comes to literature that other people of my generation have read - either through school, or because they were popular at the time, or because they’re regarded as “classics”*
But it wasn’t like I didn’t read as a kid. I read A LOT. But the funny thing was, I was really specific about what I read.
For example, Jaws by Peter Benchley. I read that as an 11-12 year old and loved it. And then I read it 6 times in a row. Did I read anything else of his? Of course not. Wasn’t interested.
Or the Point Horror series (because I’m too old for Goosebumps!). I absolutely devoured them, but only the ones by R.L.Stein. Why? Because I read one of his first. That’s literally it.
Anyone else had this relationship with books as a kid?
*don’t worry, I know this is often more to do with matters of capitalism/patriarchy/colonialism than quality.
As a child if there weren’t dragons I wasn’t reading it. There had to be a dragon in the title, on the cover, or in the text. That’s just how it was. I was particularly pleased when I would hit the trifecta and have all three, books like The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey or The Dragon and the George by Gordon R. Dickson. The first book I ever voluntarily read was about a boy and his dragon (Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher by Bruce Coville) and that was all it took to start that. That was my reading habit all the way up to HS and even then I’d say a good 50%+ of my reading was still dragons lol
Even now tho I keep a fairly narrow reading habit but it shifts more often. So one year I read exclusively space operas and the next year I might be on urban fantasy. I really only step out of that if a friend tells me I really need to read xyz book. Right now I’m pretty much exclusively reading scifi that addresses AI in some form or another but a friend was asking me about Blood Meridian so I’m on the wait list at the library for it