Can you remember the first time a book made you cry?
I was standing in the kitchen reflecting on early reading and realized I had a hard time remembering crying over a book in childhood — I remember violent floods of tears from books I read as an older teenager, but not so much as a child. And I don’t know if that’s because I didn’t cry much while reading, or because books I read as a child that affected me profoundly are books I re-read several times as I grew up, so either the tears fell away or the tears developed over time.
Strangely, what I remember tearing up over when reading The Hobbit is the songs — specifically, singing the songs to myself. I still remember the tunes I made up for them, but more than that, I have a very somatic memory of tears pricking my eyes if I sang those melodies — this strange wonder of being able to make myself feel, with some measure of control, the way I felt when I looked at a sunset, aching and yearning and lost.
We read Bridge to Teribithia aloud in 4th grade. I felt the tears coming, so I committed the betrayal of self that seemed the only option to me as a boy: I made a big, comedic, mocking show of tears, until the whole class joined in. Thinking of it now, I’m almost ashamed, but maybe I gave cover to more than just myself.
Later, in adolescence, Schmendrick’s last dream of Amalthea in The Last Unicorn: “They loved you more, I think, though I do the best I can.” Her answer, “That is why,” was about the closest I could come in my grasping at what grace is, and I cried for it.
fuckin Where the Red Fern Grows. Bridge to Terabethia. Alanna just because she's so good and pure and I wanted her to win so bad. HERO AND THE FUCKING CROWN. When she gets all burned up and is like this was hubris. Relatable. Anyhow, books make me cry a lot.
Probably due to some ingrained toxic masculinity, I never really cried at books until I read Bridge to Terabithia and bawled. I reread that book so many times and cried every time. Not sure if that was catharsis or masochism but it was definitely a step in learning to not be ashamed of emotions. I had already read Lord of the Rings several times at that age, and when I read it again after crying over Terabithia I cried at Boromir's death for the first time.
In high school, just as I was beginning to recognize my own queerness, the girl I had a crush on sent me a pirated copy of The Song of Achilles (pirated, because our respective families were deeply conservative and we were afraid of the trouble it could bring). I would go to bed with my iPod touch under my pillow and wait until the house was silent before breaking it out to read until the early morning. Besides being an incredible, lush retelling, it was the first time I'd ever read about two queer people falling in love and I sobbed through the whole thing. It remains one of my favorite books to this day.
I cried at nothing as a child! (Now I cry at everything) So I remember the first time well: the final Prydain book, The High King, when (spoiler for very old book) Coll dies. Ugh, when Taran digs the grave himself and says: “Sleep well, grower of turnips and gatherer of apples.”
The first one I remember clearly is The Amber Spyglass--not at the end but at the part in the land of the dead, when Lyra and Pan are forced to separate. It's such a visceral feeling of loss. I still cry, instantly, every time I re-read it and reach that part.
For me it was definitely Bridge to Terabithia. I don't know how old I was when I first read it, the memory belongs in that hazy period of my childhood where I could be anywhere from 7-12, but I can recall it so vividly. I was curled up in this ratty, green overstuffed armchair. The sunlight was intense, golden, probably a late spring or early summer afternoon. I was devouring the book in one sitting (as I tended to do then) when I hit the moment where Leslie dies. The denial and then overwhelming grief of Jessie perfectly matched my own. I bawled for the last section of the book, barely able to see the page through my tears, but also completely unable to stop. It would be impossible to overstate the effect that book had on me as a child. I was left in a daze for days after finishing it, I think another first for how strongly a book effected me.
Also an easy crier here. My first memory of crying over a book is Julie of the Wolves, when Daniel hurts her. 😭😭 The worst one, though, was The Outsiders. I was 7, I think, and I cried so long I got tear-burns.
I don't remember exactly, but it was either Dragonsong or Dragonsinger from Anne McCaffrey's Harper Hall trilogy. Though I don't remember precisely what it was that made me cry, I remember being startled at the response that I had to the books. I was lonely, and those stories resonated with me in a way that I hadn't experienced before. They were the first SFF books I ever read as a kid, and they opened up a whole new world to me.
I think as a teenager, “That Was Then, This Is Now” really got to me. Just how everything changed in the end. Return of The King, how everyone was parting ways and the world was changing. In adulthood-Song of Achilles made me sob.
Th first time I read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardobe, reading Lucy and Susan in the dark time after Aslan's death and their grief and loneliness and the kindness of the mice.
Lewis's Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe. The sensory memory is accute, cause I was reading hard-copy braille, rather than the electronic sort that's become ubiquitous now--think of the difference between electronic and hard-copy as rather like E-book and print.
A couple things about hard-copy that make the memory so vivid: they were gigantic books. What would've made one rather reasonably sized hard-back made three giant volumes, each of which easily overflowed my seven-year-old lap. Because of this, they needed to be bound rather cheaply, since the production costs were already high enough they were almost too prohibitively expensive for your average blind family. So they weren't bound in covers, but instead on this sorta...spindle binding that went along the left side of the volume. Holes in the left side of every page meant that it could be easily woven onto the spindle and just as easily removed, if it got out of order in printing. For a stimming kid like me, this translated into being able to slide the page on and off the spindle if I were particularly anxious about the reading of the day, which activity I indulged in frequently.
But! crucially, I'd never cried, and then came the stone table scene. As a tiny little thing, I hadn't developed anny callus, and my fingers ached from tracing the rough dots, but Aslan had just taken the Witch's bargain and there was no stopping now.
I remember the papercut on my thumb from pricking it on the sharp-edged thick braille paper in rage and terror at the milk for kitty comment, and the salt as I sucked it hard cause I didn't want a bandage before I finished. And then, gasping, full-body sobs when he was dead. So violent my Mum wanted to take the book away and I screamed and pled cause I had to see them get vengance for Aslan. And then! oh such joy when he returned. Later, Lewis's religiosity became grating, but damn that book holds a special place, if for making me realize how viscerally awful evil was and how much I wanted to conquer it the first time I wept.
I never did as a kid, but more more recently the “History, huh?” climax of Red, White, and Royal Blue made a mess of me. There’s about four parts of Becky Chambers’s Record of a Spaceborn Few that dissolve me, and the first time I read A Monster Calls years ago the ending just left me in a puddle for a good ten minutes.
I don't think I actually remember the first time, but it seems likely it was at the Alanna books. I certainly remember crying over the last one, and I read it early. One of the best and most profoundly affecting book-cries I've ever had was over Feet of Clay. I wasn't a kid, but I was a teenager, and I didn't know you could do that with a book that was supposed to be funny, and it changed my life.
I don't remember the book title, but there was a book that involved a kid who was allergic to bees and he dies after being stung. There was definitely an illustration of the kid lying on the ground at some point. I was maybe 7 and I just bawled.
As far as I can recall, it was the scene with the hospital fire in Eight Days of Luke by Diana Wynne Jones. While there may have been some earlier ones than that, they’re hard to remember. And I also find it odd that it isn’t as sad of a thing the same way as some other things I can remember crying over later. But that’s kids’ minds for you!
I must have been 13 or 14. And it was one of the Melanie Rawn books, I think Sunrunner’s Fire, but one of that series at least. Since I’ve cried over a few books. But that was the first I can remember. Honestly I don’t recall reading much as a young child, before the age of 10 or so.
The one I remember deeply moving me as a kid was "My sweet orange tree" by José Mauro de Vasconcelos, which we had to read for school. Never read it since - maybe I should add it to my pile again see how it fares 32 years later
It was when I was a teen. I was reading the sixth Harry Potter book. (Spoiler alert!) Dumbledore died. I kept thinking JKR was joking as I kept reading and he would make a miraculous comeback. But NO. I was very upset. My dad made fun of me for being so sad about it.
Was (still am) an easy crier. I read Tuck Everlasting when I was small and had just figured out that death was a thing that happens, so the end where she poured the immortality water on the toad instead of taking it herself, that had me sobbing.
I know I wept openly at several movies I saw as a kid (much to my family’s embarrassment), so surely there must have been hooks, too? The first one I remember crying while reading, though, was The Once and Future King when I was about 14.
I remember crying when my mother read Ring of Bright Water to me when I was about six or seven. I was so devastated about Mij. The first book I remember reading on my own that had me in tears regularly was Anne of Green Gables, over Matthew.
We read Bridge to Teribithia aloud in 4th grade. I felt the tears coming, so I committed the betrayal of self that seemed the only option to me as a boy: I made a big, comedic, mocking show of tears, until the whole class joined in. Thinking of it now, I’m almost ashamed, but maybe I gave cover to more than just myself.
Later, in adolescence, Schmendrick’s last dream of Amalthea in The Last Unicorn: “They loved you more, I think, though I do the best I can.” Her answer, “That is why,” was about the closest I could come in my grasping at what grace is, and I cried for it.
fuckin Where the Red Fern Grows. Bridge to Terabethia. Alanna just because she's so good and pure and I wanted her to win so bad. HERO AND THE FUCKING CROWN. When she gets all burned up and is like this was hubris. Relatable. Anyhow, books make me cry a lot.
(sorry for all the cursing)
Probably due to some ingrained toxic masculinity, I never really cried at books until I read Bridge to Terabithia and bawled. I reread that book so many times and cried every time. Not sure if that was catharsis or masochism but it was definitely a step in learning to not be ashamed of emotions. I had already read Lord of the Rings several times at that age, and when I read it again after crying over Terabithia I cried at Boromir's death for the first time.
In high school, just as I was beginning to recognize my own queerness, the girl I had a crush on sent me a pirated copy of The Song of Achilles (pirated, because our respective families were deeply conservative and we were afraid of the trouble it could bring). I would go to bed with my iPod touch under my pillow and wait until the house was silent before breaking it out to read until the early morning. Besides being an incredible, lush retelling, it was the first time I'd ever read about two queer people falling in love and I sobbed through the whole thing. It remains one of my favorite books to this day.
I cried at nothing as a child! (Now I cry at everything) So I remember the first time well: the final Prydain book, The High King, when (spoiler for very old book) Coll dies. Ugh, when Taran digs the grave himself and says: “Sleep well, grower of turnips and gatherer of apples.”
The first one I remember clearly is The Amber Spyglass--not at the end but at the part in the land of the dead, when Lyra and Pan are forced to separate. It's such a visceral feeling of loss. I still cry, instantly, every time I re-read it and reach that part.
For me it was definitely Bridge to Terabithia. I don't know how old I was when I first read it, the memory belongs in that hazy period of my childhood where I could be anywhere from 7-12, but I can recall it so vividly. I was curled up in this ratty, green overstuffed armchair. The sunlight was intense, golden, probably a late spring or early summer afternoon. I was devouring the book in one sitting (as I tended to do then) when I hit the moment where Leslie dies. The denial and then overwhelming grief of Jessie perfectly matched my own. I bawled for the last section of the book, barely able to see the page through my tears, but also completely unable to stop. It would be impossible to overstate the effect that book had on me as a child. I was left in a daze for days after finishing it, I think another first for how strongly a book effected me.
Also an easy crier here. My first memory of crying over a book is Julie of the Wolves, when Daniel hurts her. 😭😭 The worst one, though, was The Outsiders. I was 7, I think, and I cried so long I got tear-burns.
I don't remember exactly, but it was either Dragonsong or Dragonsinger from Anne McCaffrey's Harper Hall trilogy. Though I don't remember precisely what it was that made me cry, I remember being startled at the response that I had to the books. I was lonely, and those stories resonated with me in a way that I hadn't experienced before. They were the first SFF books I ever read as a kid, and they opened up a whole new world to me.
I think as a teenager, “That Was Then, This Is Now” really got to me. Just how everything changed in the end. Return of The King, how everyone was parting ways and the world was changing. In adulthood-Song of Achilles made me sob.
Goblet of Fire. I think I was nine? It was the first character death I ever experienced in a book. I was furious that writers could just DO that!
Th first time I read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardobe, reading Lucy and Susan in the dark time after Aslan's death and their grief and loneliness and the kindness of the mice.
Lewis's Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe. The sensory memory is accute, cause I was reading hard-copy braille, rather than the electronic sort that's become ubiquitous now--think of the difference between electronic and hard-copy as rather like E-book and print.
A couple things about hard-copy that make the memory so vivid: they were gigantic books. What would've made one rather reasonably sized hard-back made three giant volumes, each of which easily overflowed my seven-year-old lap. Because of this, they needed to be bound rather cheaply, since the production costs were already high enough they were almost too prohibitively expensive for your average blind family. So they weren't bound in covers, but instead on this sorta...spindle binding that went along the left side of the volume. Holes in the left side of every page meant that it could be easily woven onto the spindle and just as easily removed, if it got out of order in printing. For a stimming kid like me, this translated into being able to slide the page on and off the spindle if I were particularly anxious about the reading of the day, which activity I indulged in frequently.
But! crucially, I'd never cried, and then came the stone table scene. As a tiny little thing, I hadn't developed anny callus, and my fingers ached from tracing the rough dots, but Aslan had just taken the Witch's bargain and there was no stopping now.
I remember the papercut on my thumb from pricking it on the sharp-edged thick braille paper in rage and terror at the milk for kitty comment, and the salt as I sucked it hard cause I didn't want a bandage before I finished. And then, gasping, full-body sobs when he was dead. So violent my Mum wanted to take the book away and I screamed and pled cause I had to see them get vengance for Aslan. And then! oh such joy when he returned. Later, Lewis's religiosity became grating, but damn that book holds a special place, if for making me realize how viscerally awful evil was and how much I wanted to conquer it the first time I wept.
Winnie the Pooh, when I was six, and I realized Christopher Robin was growing up and not going back to see his friends! Still makes me tear up :(
I never did as a kid, but more more recently the “History, huh?” climax of Red, White, and Royal Blue made a mess of me. There’s about four parts of Becky Chambers’s Record of a Spaceborn Few that dissolve me, and the first time I read A Monster Calls years ago the ending just left me in a puddle for a good ten minutes.
I don't think I actually remember the first time, but it seems likely it was at the Alanna books. I certainly remember crying over the last one, and I read it early. One of the best and most profoundly affecting book-cries I've ever had was over Feet of Clay. I wasn't a kid, but I was a teenager, and I didn't know you could do that with a book that was supposed to be funny, and it changed my life.
I don't remember the book title, but there was a book that involved a kid who was allergic to bees and he dies after being stung. There was definitely an illustration of the kid lying on the ground at some point. I was maybe 7 and I just bawled.
As far as I can recall, it was the scene with the hospital fire in Eight Days of Luke by Diana Wynne Jones. While there may have been some earlier ones than that, they’re hard to remember. And I also find it odd that it isn’t as sad of a thing the same way as some other things I can remember crying over later. But that’s kids’ minds for you!
I must have been 13 or 14. And it was one of the Melanie Rawn books, I think Sunrunner’s Fire, but one of that series at least. Since I’ve cried over a few books. But that was the first I can remember. Honestly I don’t recall reading much as a young child, before the age of 10 or so.
The one I remember deeply moving me as a kid was "My sweet orange tree" by José Mauro de Vasconcelos, which we had to read for school. Never read it since - maybe I should add it to my pile again see how it fares 32 years later
It was when I was a teen. I was reading the sixth Harry Potter book. (Spoiler alert!) Dumbledore died. I kept thinking JKR was joking as I kept reading and he would make a miraculous comeback. But NO. I was very upset. My dad made fun of me for being so sad about it.
Was (still am) an easy crier. I read Tuck Everlasting when I was small and had just figured out that death was a thing that happens, so the end where she poured the immortality water on the toad instead of taking it herself, that had me sobbing.
I know I wept openly at several movies I saw as a kid (much to my family’s embarrassment), so surely there must have been hooks, too? The first one I remember crying while reading, though, was The Once and Future King when I was about 14.
I remember crying when my mother read Ring of Bright Water to me when I was about six or seven. I was so devastated about Mij. The first book I remember reading on my own that had me in tears regularly was Anne of Green Gables, over Matthew.