So I'm listening to the Dragonriders of Pern audiobooks, and I'm having a lovely bit of nostalgia as a result. I read these books as a kid, and I forgot how much I enjoyed them. This reminded me of how I first experienced the books, and thought it would be a fun story to share, and to encourage others to share similar experiences.
I was in the 4th grade, and we were in the library of my elementary school, watching a very boring slideshow storybook of Black Beauty.
For those of you too young to know what that is, publishers used to make audio recordings of short stories for children, and would include still shots, usually artist renderings of the story, to accompany them. You would look at the image and listen to the story, and every few minutes, a distinctive "bong" noise would happen in the audio, prompting you to change the slide to the next one.
I remember being in the library with my class, bored to death with this, mostly because it was a dull way to tell me the story, and also because it was Black Beauty, and I just don't really find horses all that fascinating.
So I'm sitting there, bored, wishing the session be over soon, and I happen to glance to my right, and noticed I was sitting in front of the fantasy/scifi section of the school library. I scanned the titles, until I came across called "Dragonsong". This caught my attention, as while I didn't care about horses, dragons is something else entirely. It had a cover picture of a waifish girl, sitting on a rock, playing a lute, while tiny dragons flew around her. And something about dragons that could sing? Interesting, hmm.
So I picked up the book, turned my back on the slide show of Black Beauty, and started reading, and was instantly hooked. It was a well written story, that just sucked me in. Sucked me in so much in fact, that the teacher noticed I wasn't paying attention and shook my arm, giving me a stern look. I looked up at her when she asked "What are you doing?", clearly annoyed that I wasn't paying attention to the slide show. I looked up at her, and showed her the book, with a blank expression as if to say "I'm reading a book! We're in the library after all!" She was taken aback by that, and said something like "Oh...well, ok then." And just turned around and left. Even at that age, I recall thinking it was silly to get mad at me for reading a book in a library. The whole idea of the slideshow was to try and encourage us to read, well I already was doing that, so what's the problem? xD
When the slideshow was over, I promptly went up to the counter and checked the book out to read. I ended up reading the entire series over the years, including the book "All the Weyrs of Pern", which was the first book I ever begged my parents to not make me go to bed, because I was at the climax of the story, and was seriously upset at the thought of not knowing what happened until tomorrow!! Unthinkable!
So, what kind of similar experiences have you had with some book, that just sucked you in and you couldn't put it down as a kid?
I was in the 4th grade, and we were in the library of my elementary school, watching a very boring slideshow storybook of Black Beauty.
For those of you too young to know what that is, publishers used to make audio recordings of short stories for children, and would include still shots, usually artist renderings of the story, to accompany them. You would look at the image and listen to the story, and every few minutes, a distinctive "bong" noise would happen in the audio, prompting you to change the slide to the next one.
I remember being in the library with my class, bored to death with this, mostly because it was a dull way to tell me the story, and also because it was Black Beauty, and I just don't really find horses all that fascinating.
So I'm sitting there, bored, wishing the session be over soon, and I happen to glance to my right, and noticed I was sitting in front of the fantasy/scifi section of the school library. I scanned the titles, until I came across called "Dragonsong". This caught my attention, as while I didn't care about horses, dragons is something else entirely. It had a cover picture of a waifish girl, sitting on a rock, playing a lute, while tiny dragons flew around her. And something about dragons that could sing? Interesting, hmm.
So I picked up the book, turned my back on the slide show of Black Beauty, and started reading, and was instantly hooked. It was a well written story, that just sucked me in. Sucked me in so much in fact, that the teacher noticed I wasn't paying attention and shook my arm, giving me a stern look. I looked up at her when she asked "What are you doing?", clearly annoyed that I wasn't paying attention to the slide show. I looked up at her, and showed her the book, with a blank expression as if to say "I'm reading a book! We're in the library after all!" She was taken aback by that, and said something like "Oh...well, ok then." And just turned around and left. Even at that age, I recall thinking it was silly to get mad at me for reading a book in a library. The whole idea of the slideshow was to try and encourage us to read, well I already was doing that, so what's the problem? xD
When the slideshow was over, I promptly went up to the counter and checked the book out to read. I ended up reading the entire series over the years, including the book "All the Weyrs of Pern", which was the first book I ever begged my parents to not make me go to bed, because I was at the climax of the story, and was seriously upset at the thought of not knowing what happened until tomorrow!! Unthinkable!
So, what kind of similar experiences have you had with some book, that just sucked you in and you couldn't put it down as a kid?
