My family treated reading and books like a mafia of sorts.
You're initiated young, and you really don't have a choice in the matter. You can try to resist if you like, but there's really no point. You'll inevitably be pulled back in.
Like clockwork, every Saturday we'd march into the library. Looking back now, the entire thing sort of resembled a covert military operation, too. With books tucked under each arm, we'd march in, return the ones we read and browsed for our next adventure.
The shelves of possibilities - in every size, color and shape - stretched before us like miles of open highway. Remember that childhood feeling of opening those crisp pages of a book and getting lost in a new, magical world?
Sometimes the books were short and full of colorful and vibrant pictures that only fueled your imagination further. Sometimes the books were longer and were part of a series; the more you read, the more you came to feel like the characters were your best friends, and you were just tagging along with them on their adventures.
Where other children played outside and discovered the world, the limits placed on me because of my disability evaporated the second I opened the pages of any book. It was pure magic, and one of the reasons I became a writer.
Thankfully, those adventures haven't had to end with the passing of childhood, either. With a new round of children's books coming to life on the big screen, both the young and old have a chance to experience the magic together. From my early favorite, "The Baby-sitter's Club" to "Harry Potter" to "Alice in Wonderland" to the latest hit, "Ramona and Beezus," I say a revival of the innocence and wonderment is a much-needed welcome.
There's something about the simple - and funny - stories offered in children's books that have translated perfectly to the silver screen. As my mother and I sat in the theater last week watching Ramona crack an egg on her head and get sick in front of her entire class, we laughed like children again. Life became a veritable fantasy land once more. It was a very comforting and freeing feeling.
Ramona herself reminds us that sometimes it's good - even preferred - to be a kid again. To invent words. To have a soaring imagination. To believe that anything and everything in our wildest dreams is possible. And of course, to be fearless. Because Ramona was nothing if not the most fearless kid - both in fiction and in real life - that I ever knew.
There's still one book I'd like to see on the silver screen, though: "The Superfudge" series. It's got it all: the adventures and misadventures of two brothers, and of course, lots of life lessons learned along the way.
I bet the movie would even be as big as I imagined things in the books, too.
And in the end, what's even better? These books-on-screen will open the eyes and imaginations for a whole new generation. I think of that every time I see a young family walking into the library together lugging a large stack of books.
What were your childhood favorites? Maybe they'd love to take you down memory lane again.
