"One of my first memories is of being read aloud to. My mother would prop me in a corner of the sofa and read to me before I was old enough to sit up by myself. But my parents were determined that I not learn to read before I went to school; they were afraid I might then start school disliking it and finding it boring. So I went to first grade very eager: I already knew that books were the best things going, and school was going to give them to me. My mother tells the story that I came home from my first day in a rage: 'I haven't learned to read yet!' I think it took about six more weeks.

"My father was in the Navy and came back from his long overseas trips with his suitcases full of books and rolls of film...