An Early Reader

Alissa Grosso

Feb 19, 2025

Photo of a vintage Holly Hobby children's record player.

I found the above photo of a vintage Holly Hobbie record player on the internet. I owned this same record player as a child and used it often. Somewhere along the line the blue plastic gramophone horn broke off of my machine, but it didn’t affect the functionality. For a time when I was growing up, this was the only record player in our house that could play 78 rpm records (It had three settings, 33, 45 and 78.) and so was borrowed by my parents on more than one occasion to play a 78.

I was reminded of this record player not too long ago when a user on Bluesky half-jokingly posted a photo of a vintage children’s book and record set and explained that for members of Generation X this was what constituted a bedtime story. So, for the record (see what I did there?) I would like to state that my mom did regularly read us bedtime stories.

That said, I also owned more than one of those book and record sets and listened to them all the time. I had a Thumbelina one that was my absolute favorite. Many hours were spent in my bedroom with the 45 playing on my Holly Hobbie record player and the little paperback book opened in front of me waiting for the little chime that signified it was time to turn the page.

But perhaps one of the most Generation X things about my childhood was another book and record set that I owned. This one was a whole series of books and records along with an assortment of flashcards and other little word and letter cards. This was a phonics learning set that either my parents or some other adult in my life had purchased for me. As a kid I would spend hours in my room playing the records, flipping the pages of the phonics booklets and sorting through the various cards. I no longer remember the name of this particular learning set, but as someone who learned to read at a very young age, I could have been their poster child.

I suppose some of this nostalgia was also inspired by this week’s read. Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino follows the life story of a girl just a little bit younger than me, and reading the tale of Adina and her fax machine made me think of being alone in my room with my pile of talking records.

I should point out that my parents also started me in nursery school a bit earlier than most kids, and I had the benefit of being the first born grandchild on either side of the family at a time when most of our relatives lived within a five mile radius, meaning that even though both of my parents worked full time I had an almost excessive amount of adult attention as a kid. If my grandmother was too busy to read me a story, there was probably a great aunt around to take up the task, or if I happened to be at my other grandparents’ house and Grandma was busy in the kitchen when my Uncle got home from high school he would read to me from his comic books.

Still I have to think some of the credit goes to that plastic Holly Hobbie record player and those early audiobooks as well as that phonics set. Kids today might not have record players (though I do see that vinyl is making a comeback) but they have a wealth of content available to them through YouTube. Some of it is definitely more educational than others, but I can’t help thinking of the small children out there who are sitting on their bedroom floor watching YouTube videos and learning to read at an overly young age, destined to become lifelong bookworms.

— Alissa