30-Day Book Challenge: Day 21

Day 21 - The First Novel You Remember Reading
I took this to mean the first "adult" novel. I read all the original Nancy Drews and the Babysitter's Club Super Specials probably count as novels. But I remember Little Women. It was one of my grandmother's favorites and she was very eager to talk about it. (I'm the second youngest of 16 cousins on that side, and I was still the first to read it.)
I had a kind of nasty fourth-grade teacher who wouldn't let us bring books from home for free reading. We had to read something in the class library, which was pretty sparse for 30 kids, and full of books I'd read or were below my reading level. (My grade school, very strangely, didn't allow any one to read chapter books before fourth grade because they might pick a book that was too hard for them and then they'd get discouraged and never read again, so even at nine we were still expected to be reading picture books.)
But there was a small selection of classics, so I read Little Women and Pride and Prejudice, which probably were too mature. But I still love reading and Jo, so obviously it didn't harm me.