The first book that I can recall being read to me was, Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. I’m not sure what it was about this book, but I felt the need to make my parents read this book to me every night. In my opinion, this was probably the first book that I learned to read. The reason that I have to say “probably” is due to the fact that my parents seem to feel that, seeing as I was only 3 years old, I wasn’t actually reading, but had simply memorized the book from the multitude of times that I had heard the book read to me. The problem that I have is that when I read the book aloud to them, I was reading the correct words for the correct pages. It was, however, a picture book, so I could have been associating words with certain pictures, but even that seems like a bit of a stretch for a three year old.

The first chapter book that I can recall falling in love with would definitely be Matilda by Roald Dahl. It was recommended to me by my school librarian at some point during elementary school (I would suppose somewhere between 1^st and 2^nd grade), and this book swept me away. I suppose I became so infatuated with the book because I felt as though Matilda was a very interesting character. We were both rather introverted readers, and for that, I felt as though she was relatable. Furthermore, she had telekinetic powers that she used to get back at her enemies, which made her that much cooler to me. Reading this book sent me into a phase where I was reading every Roald Dahl book that I could get my hands on – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, The BFG, just to name a few. I think that it was books like those that made me develop the passion for reading that I have today.