When I was a child, my favorite book was... You're kidding?!

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My favorite books as a kid were any adult animal care books(The Childrens' ones were too simplistic), preferably horse care(understand there was no way in heaven or on earth I was going to get a horse) I also loved dictionaries and encyclopedias, of course. I had an old animal encyclopedia from the 80's that I read constantly, and the whole set of "wildlife fact file"(you know...those sheets you get a subscription for and 10 more come in the mail every month and you put them in those special notebooks) I would have been in raptures if I had managed to get ahold of an encylopedia. Oh, I also liked the old english and history textbooks my Dad used to get from school(he works there) I also loved any books with weird facts.
As for "normal" books that I liked...Black Beauty was my favorite, closely followed by the Ramona books. And I loved all your basic childrens' classics-Little House, Beverly Cleary, Roahl Dahl, Anne of Green Gables etc. etc.

At what age? My long running favorite above all else were encyclopedias.In thirs and fourth grade, I was interested in basically anything pertaining to railroads as well as overseas shipping that I could get my hands on. (which wasn't much) Also in fourth and into fifth grade I was really into anything pertaining to the civil war. In sixth grade, I was reading All Quiet on The Western Front (Edward Maria Remarque), as well as Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eywitness Account, by Miklos Nyiszli, as well as trashy space opera (Star Wars, Buck Rodgers,Etc.) I was really into the whole Nazi Germany thing.
Seventh grade I was still into the whole WW2 thing, as well as getting into more meanigful fiction like Orwell's 1984/Animal Farm, Huxley's Brave New World, etc.

Anything by TIME-LIFE

I read the guieness world record book a great deal and memorized (I have no idea how, my memory is genearly so sh***y) most of the records when I was 6 and 7. From there I read the enclycopedias and a lot fo DIY craft books from ages 7 to 10. Then, I discovered Star Wars and read most of that fiction, plus any technical information on the stuff in the movies, etc.

Hardy Boys Books.

I liked reading text books on paleontology.

One of my favourites was called British Paleazioc Fossils.

I also liked reading geological maps.

For stories I mostly used to read marvel and DC comics.

I enjoyed reading books on medieval history. I would read and re-read the different books over and over again, despite knowing all the information.

I essentially did the same thing.Even in school! From about sixth grade until I got fed up with school in 9th grade, I more or less floated through class reading books and barely paying attention. I did manage to pass tests though, as well as amaze a 9th grade teacher by working out long division in my head. My attitude was if you're going to be half assed about teaching people, than I'm going to be half assed at paying attention to you.

I used to read books about astronomy, something in our sorry school system that was never taught. I liked the ones that showed illustrations of how the sun would turn into a red giant and eventually swallow the earth before going super nova. I still have a facination with dooms day scenarios.

There was this old dictionary I read that had a list of names and their meaning, the flags of every nation, a picture of the solar system and the alphabet in 5 languages. I even had a medical dictionary that I used when I became facinated with fatal illnesses. My mother had an incomplete set of encyclopoedias I liked, especially "D", which had a picture of every breed of dog.

My grandfather would bring home old text books he got from the school in which he was a supervising maintanance engineer and I'd devour them everytime I visited my grandparents. I can say this....If I had relied on the school teachers to teach me everything, I would be as ignorant as most people in this city.

My grandmother also had piles of Sears catalogues I'd look in over and over again, especially the "Wish Book" with the toys and the home catalogue with the kid's funiture and home decor. My grandmother still saves Sear's booklets(they don't produce catalogues anymore) and those from other stores and she knows she hardly will use any of them. Hmmm, me thinks an Aspie, perhaps?

Well...as far as my reading obsessions go, I could probably be considered normal. I started reading at an early age, but remember I disliked historical fiction throughout elementary and middle school, especially the Little House books. My favourites in elementary school (starting in first grade, I think) were C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia. I read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe so many times that the cover fell off and for quite a few years, I could recite it nearly word for word.

Contrary to popular belief, however, I have never tried to read the dictionary. I've always had a fascination with languages, especially Latin and Spanish, so I've been reading books in Spanish lately. I don't know if this counts as reading material, but I look through the newspapers every day for information on epidemics of disease...

As a kid, I read typical children's storybooks, Greek mythology, or I read about animals. I was obsessed with animals. For some reason, I can still recite the differences between Old World monkeys and New World monkeys from a book I read when I was ten. I was also big on the Discovery Channel. "Calvin and Hobbes" was another obsession.

Other than that, I mostly read fiction, but I do read plenty of non-fiction, which mostly focuses on law enforcement, seriel killers, or anything having to do with police work.

I didn't start reading the dictionary until I was in high school.

I used to like reading Reader's Digests. One Christmas when I was about 8, I had a stomach bug and couldn't eat mum's nice chicken lunch. As a kind of consolation prize, she told me where to find all these Reader's Digests that dad had collected over the years (there were hundreds, dating from 1949 & on)

I read and re-read them lots of times. I don't think present-day Reader's Digests are are good as the old ones were. I especially liked the medical articles eg. "I am Jane's ovary" and "I am Joe's Brain".

I really enjoyed gun books as well. My grandad gave me a few and I thoroughly loved them. Have loads of military related books. And Horrible Histories.

I used to read a lot of fact books.

When I was about 8 and thought I was going to get a computer soon I went out and got this football computer game... well I didnt get the computer for a couple more years so I read threw that games manual a million times... not exactally my favorite book but :shrugs:. The sad part is that the manual was actually better then the game.

My favourite book was The Hobbit but apart from that there was a trilogy of books that I really loved - they were called Viking's Dawn, The Road to Miklagard and Viking's Sunset.

They told the story of a boy called Harald Sigurdsson who lived by a fjord in Norway and went to sea on a viking longboat. Of course it was fun and adventure rather that extreme violence and rape. The second one was when he was older and they went to Constantinople, which the vikings called Miklagard, ( he was captain of the ship by this time) and the third one was when he was an old man.

They were great, they were by someone called Geoffrey Treece I think, possibly Henry Treece and I've tried to find them quite recently but not been able to.

Then I started reading Lord of the Rings aged about 11 and read it at least once a year for the next five years or so.

I also enjoyed reading through the DSM when I could get ahold of it.

Funny also, in my junior year of high school I signed up for the only Psychology class. And so the summer before, when I finally got hold of the Psych book a couple weeks before school started, I read through the whole text before the class began. I must admit, that Psych class was incredibly boring because the teacher only had a minor in Psychology and was actually the director of the high school (or whatever the hello she did) and not actually a teacher at all! God, I was bored. I could have taught the class better than she, honestly.