I'm not completely sure, since I was only 7 or 8 at the time, but I think this was the first Time Machine book I checked out from our school library and read through to the end. It wasn't assigned by my teacher, and therefore I didn't have to read it. (And as a running around outdoors kind of kid, reading appealed to me about as much as watching C-SPAN.) So I may not have bothered at all except that I remember getting pulled into the story after just a few pages. "Wow," my childhood self probably thought, "I didn't know reading could be fun!"

I'd be lying if I said I became a lifelong reader right then—that wouldn't come for another 10 years—but I suspect the seed was planted. ( )