What book really sparked your love of reading.

I began reading at an early age. My mom taught me to read before pre-school. She bought me a few large, illustrated versions of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books (2nd grade?) because I loved to watch the old black and white movies on PBS. I was buying book after book at school in the Scholastic book fairs in 1st-6th grade, mostly books that looked fun. I participated in Pizza Hut's Book It program, and I loved Reading Rainbow.

My LOVE of reading/literature truly began in 4th grade, though. I had to write a book report for English class. It was nearly Christmas time, and I had just received my order from Scholastic. I did not know anything about Charles Dickens at the time, but the small paperback illustrations on the cover of A Christmas Carol were mesmorizing. The brief summary description also caught my attention, so I ordered it.

From the first page, I was hooked. I luckily had a copy with footnotes, so I used them and my dictionary to understand some of the "strange" language. By the end of that book, I LOVED literature.

I have read A Christmas Carol nearly every year at Christmas time since high school. I have it in my lap at the moment and plan to read it either today or tomorrow. In fact, I have two copies and hope to encourage my daughter to read it with me since she has to take an AR test next week.

Wish me luck. She hated Great Expectations and prefers books like The Hunger Games...which is fine. I would love to share this yearly tradition with her, though.