I read it as a kid, too but almost certainly in a mangled version. I can see why Verne is described as the father of science fiction. His entire approach is to emphasize the power of scientific technology--as it was conceived at that time. It was his approach that dominated most science fiction into the so called "Golden Age".
Verne clearly felt that the scientific element was of great importance. Thus, there are very many quite long exposition passages {sometimes taking up a complete chapter} which are devoted to various scientific ideas and theories. These sections are frequently quite interesting {excluding the elaborations of various menu items
} despite the fact that they are dated. In this way he is quite different from Wells who was much more vague in his use of sci-fi literary machinery. The
Nautilus, for example, is certainly very carefully constructed in literary terms and is very nearly a character in the book.
In fact, the great submarine is more vivid and realistic than any of the characters aside from Nemo. The Captain stands out with a mysterious charisma. The other main figures are rather one-dimensional--especially the {for me} intensely irritating Ned Land. Conseil gets on my nerves with his constant references to "Master" and the Professor himself suffers the fate of many novelistic narrators in that he becomes subsumed into the story as a plot mechanism.
But intense characterization has seldom been a strong element in science-fiction. Nemo makes up for the other cardboard characters and the imaginative power of Verne allows one to read it now almost as though it were an example of Steampunk.