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Before I learned to read, my parents often read to me. When I ask, my mom can still list my favorite books (and recite many of them by heart), and I remember most of the books; but I remember the books themselves—the stories and images they contained—more clearly than I remember sitting with my parents and reading. I began learning to read at home, before I started kindergarten, but I don’t really remember that. I’m told that my father and I began with Dr. Seuss’s The Foot Book. I do remember an early reading lesson in kindergarten: the teacher, Mrs. Potter, sat at the front of the class, with a giant book propped up on an easel. Mrs. Potter asked for volunteer readers, and we raised our hands (I think) to read words or sentences. The memory is really hazy now. I remember finding, to my great excitement, that I could read more words than my classmates could—except for the Miller twins, who were already great readers. Mrs. Potter pointed to a word and asked if anyone could read it (for some reason, “monkey” comes to mind). I was disappointed to realize that I couldn’t read the word. Only the Miller twins could read “monkey” (or whatever), and I was incredibly jealous. I was a good reader, but the Miller twins were better. I wanted to be the best reader: to impress the teacher, to make my parents proud. How interesting – now, in retrospect—that even then, as a five-year-old, I had decided that some readers were “better” than others, and that the teacher cared who was “best.”