This is a tough one. When I was a kid (9 or 10), the library up the block from me used to give me their old language books. I remember getting a stack of Spanish books. I had no idea who he was but I started reading
Unamuno! One was a play called
El hermano Juan o El mundo es teatro, and the other was a collection of poetry. I was bored with both for 2 reasons. First, I was 9! and secondly I didn't know Spanish well enough (or English for that matter) to grasp his symbolism. I dropped the play after 10 pages. The poetry book I think I fell asleep to.
My first Esperanto book was a book called
Karlo, when I was 10. (1981) It was maybe a 20 page book (It was a tiny book). These were all donations from my library. I just had to read
something. (That's why I read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in one sitting when I was 9 or 10). I spent a Friday afternoon and finished Sunday night. For Italian I read a comic book. With German I read a kids book called "Fun with German"
http://www.amazon.com/Fun-German-Cooper ... 525&sr=8-1I loved it. It was about circus animals. I think I read it 100 times. I still remember the main narrator's popular line,
Ach sagt das Schaf. Das macht Spaß!.
Frau Känguruh was the narrator.
How do I rememebr these things?