Early Reading Meme

Another meme! This one from Kate.

1. How old were you when you learned to read and who taught you? I don't remember learning how to read, but I know I knew how before I got to kindergarten. Maybe since my parents and grandparents and babysitting cousins always read to me it was no big deal when I started reading the book to them. I think my learning to read was a group effort with the bulk of the credit going to my mom.
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 know I owned a lot of books when I was a child, but having a younger sister meant that most of the books were jointly owned. The first book that I can remember as being just mine was The Cat in the Hat. I think I got it for Christmas because my sister got Green Eggs and Ham from the same person at the same time. But even though it was my book, I didn't have my own bookshelf so it went in the livingroom with the family's books. That was actually fine with me because I didn't like it. The Cat was upsetting  and Thing 1 and Thing 2 were absolutely terrifying.
3. What's the first book you bought with your own money? I can't say for sure, but it was probably A Wrinkle in Time or one of the Little House on the Prairie books.
4. Were you a re-reader as a child? If so, which book did you re-read most often? I did re-read but not a whole lot (just like my adult reading habits!). I re-read Charlotte's Web a few times and Where the Red Fern Grows. And I was fascinated by Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan. I had several children's books about them that I read more than once. One of them had the finger spelling alphabet in the back and I would sit with it and practice over and over. It also had the Braille alphabet and my sister and I would use pins from my mom's sewing kit to write each other "secret" messages in Braille.
5. What's the first adult book that captured your interest and how old were you when you read it? I believe it was Watership Down and I would have been about 11. I loved that it was about rabbits and they weren't nice fluffy bunnies. I was also amazed to realize the book was not just about rabbits, that there was more going on and it connected with things in the real world.
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 can't say I loved it, but read and enjoyed The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe last year. I never read the Alice in Wonderland books when I was a kid either. I read those a couple years ago and really liked them. I think if I had read them when I was a child I would have missed a lot and probably would not have liked them. There are quite a few things in Alice that would have scared me, like Tweedledee and Tweedledum and the Queen of Hearts (I was scared of the Cat in the Hat, remember?). Harry Potter was not out when I was a kid, but I have read them all as an adult and am eagerly awaiting the final book.