Finding first reads with Google

Monday, July 16, 2007 at 9:38 AM



The other day I realized that I could use Google Book Search to find a piece of my past. With just a few keystrokes, I searched and found the first book I ever read, Danny and the Dinosaur. There it was -- just as I remembered it, unchanged after all these years.

I know I'm unusual in being able to identify my first book so definitively. Initially, books and I just didn't seem to mesh. It took me a little while to get up to speed, and I needed some extra help and encouragement along the way. Once I'd read my first book, though, I was so proud I decided to read it aloud to my entire first grade class. I was sharing what I knew about this reading thing in general, and the joy of Danny and the Dinosaur in particular.

There are other great books I remember from my first days of reading, like Harold and the Purple Crayon and the Magic School Bus books. It's fun to rediscover the wonderful illustrations in these books.

Lots of people use Google Book Search to find information about important people from their past. Why not use it to find the books that meant a lot to you growing up? Take a few minutes and give it a try -- you can browse the pages, and if you want, use the "Buy this Book" or "Find this book in a library" links to locate a hard copy. That way, you can reclaim your first book -- or give it to someone special to read for the very first time.

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