When I was a child, reading gave me the chance to escape an unhappy reality. It was not a passive activity. It was astonishingly active. I may have been lying down or sitting, but I was in another place. My imagination was activated, and I felt as if I were living in a garret in London, or skulking through the walls of the Chateau d’If, or attending a young mother-to-be in confinement in rural 1800s Russia.

As I grew older I realized reading was more than a thrilling escape; it was a way to know myself better. Great writing reflects humanity, and we can see ourselves mirrored in complex characters and their stories. We have that sense of self-discovery, a personal awakening, through the reading of a good book. I remember this feeling at age four or five when I read And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street*, by Dr. Seuss, a validation of my own imagination in a way that helped me to deal with the everyday world.