As I look back over my long history as a reader, memories flood in regarding specific books and book-related events. A few stand out:

• The Scholastic book catalog that used to arrive periodically in my elementary school classroom.My parents were extremely supportive of my reading, and would let me choose as many as I liked. And oh, the day my books arrived! Heaven!
• A Mother Goose story book I discovered in the library when I was in sixth grade. Although it was far too "young" for me, I loved it, particularly a story about a young woman who killed her sister. The body turned into bones, which someone made into a harp, which then sang of the sister's perfidy. It was actually rather morbid.
• OK, I've got to admit it. My folks were "rubbish pickers." They loved to find really cool stuff in other peoples' trash (don't tell them I told you). One of the best finds in the world was a complete hardback set of Beverly Gray mysteries (she was kind of like a college-age Nancy Drew). I wish I still had them, as they'd likely be worth a lot of money now.
• Taking a Bible in to school to read, and being told to take it home again as it wasn't "appropriate" for the classroom. (I still can't believe that happened.)
• Reading The Adventures of Robin Hood (over and over and over again), and dressing up like one of the Merry Men for weeks on end.
• Learning about opera from a series of library books that not only told the story of the opera, but had the musical themes notated. They were easy enough that I could play them on the piano.I fell in love with The Magic Flute and Carmen long before I ever saw an opera staged.
• Discovering Shakespeare in story synopses in my grandmother's set of The Book of Knowledge (something else I wish we still owned). I can still see the sketches of Lady Macbeth descending a staircase by candlelight, and the two princes in the tower from Richard III.
• Reading Jane Eyre with a flashlight under the covers late into the night. (Well, it felt late to me at the time!)
• My first "dirty book." My poor dad brought home A Stranger in the Mirror by Sidney Sheldon for me without apparently knowing what it was about.It had been languishing in his office's Lost & Found for months, and he thought I might like it. I think I was in junior high at the time, and was shocked – and fascinated. I did not, by the way, tell the folks what I was reading.
• Reading Stephen King's Salem's Lot, and then having to sleep with the lights on for a week.

Davina Morgan-Witts, BookBrowse editor

Humans are much like fruitcake. Now, I know fruitcake analogies are hard to swallow for most American readers but, as a born and bred Brit, I love (a well-made) fruitcake - so go with me on this for a moment!

When we're young the things we learn, and especially the 'truths' we discover for ourselves mix the essential ingredients of our character, forming the person we'll become - they become baked into our adult selves. As adults, we keep on learning and discovering but very rarely do new ideas impact us as powerfully once we get into our middle years - they form the icing on the cake, not the cake itself (and yes, before you ask, in England we do ice our fruitcakes - particularly for weddings and Christmas).

I was struck by this recently while rereading one of my favorite childhood books and remembering how I felt the first time I read it. Manxmouse by Paul Gallico is a gentle fable about a blue tailless china mouse who magically comes to life. Born without fear because 'no one is born frightened or fearing anything', Manxmouse travels through the English countryside befriending the large and small, both animal and human, and living through any number of narrow escapes, but wherever he goes he is told that he 'belongs to Manx Cat' and slowly fear grows in him. Determined to take control of his destiny he travels to the Isle of Man (home of the manx cats) to face his fate.

Reading Manxmouse to our daughter over the last couple of weeks has been an immensely enjoyable experience, but the pleasure for me has come more from recollection and seeing her enjoyment than in the reading itself. Reading the story as an adult simply doesn't have the the impact that that first reading did oh so long ago, and wouldn't have done even if I'd never read it before. In fact, I can confidently say that few books that I've read in the past couple of decades have left the mark on me that those early childhood favorites did - and the reason for this is simply that the profound insights first discovered in the pages of books such as Manxmouse, that stirred my thinking in new ways, are old news to me now.

Much is written about the importance of children reading but, to me, the most fundamental reason to read good books young is usually overlooked.Yes, being able to read well is a great advantage to getting good grades, a good job and all that - but more profoundly, good books enable children to discover for themselves who they are and what matters to them - they provide essential ingredients that, when baked in the slow-oven of childhood, shape the adults we become.

No doubt some will say that such lessons can be found in many places, not just in the pages of a good book, and I'm sure they're right.  But I can't help thinking that there is something about the experience of reading and discovering ideas for the first time in the quiet of ones own mind through the pages of a book that allows the penetration of thoughts deeper and more profoundly than a TV sitcom or any number of late-night sleepovers. Others might disagree. I can only speak for myself, that much of what I am, think and feel came from the pages of a handful of books that I discovered before the age of 13, a disproportionate number of which were written by Paul Gallico.

Davina Morgan-Witts, BookBrowse editor

Since the first publicly-funded library opened in the USA in 1833, many generations of children have been inspired and nurtured by local librarians - none more so than the two generations of children in Old Greenwich, Connecticut who have had the privilege to be members of the Young Critics' Club at Perrot Memorial Library.

The club (actually, two clubs, one for grades 4-5 and one for 6-8) was founded by librarian Kate McClelland over 25 years ago (the oldest "Young Critics" are now in their 40s) and up until this week was run by Kate, her colleague Kathy Krasniewicz, and library director Mary Clark.

That was until yesterday when an apparently drunk driver veered into an airport bus on its way to Denver airport, killing two of the passengers, identified as Kathy Krasniewicz, 54 and Kate McClelland, 71 - who were returning home from the American Library Association's Midwinter meeting. Greenwich's local newspaper, The Greenwich Times, has more details.

I did not know either woman personally but have followed the Young Critics' reading lists for some years and have admired the club from afar; so I considered myself extremely fortunate to have the opportunity to interview Kate just three months ago to find out more about the Young Critics' Clubs. You can read the full interview here, but here is a small snippet of Kate's words that, to me, sums up the impact that a single person can have when she (or he) is doing something she loves and has the drive to share that enthusiasm with others:

"It is inspiring, and it is the kids themselves in all their quirky, funny, loud, interruptive glory who inspire. The meetings are highly amusing and entertaining... like herding the proverbial cats. I feel like I spend way too much time asking them to "hush" so I can hear people speak, but one day I overheard them talking about how they thought club meetings were a party; and I thought, "well, that's cool!"

I once heard a new member telling her mother in the parking lot how thrilled she was because she loved books and none of her friends read so she never had anyone to talk to about her books... they only wanted to talk about TV shows and movies. She said that in one room, for the first time, she met more people to talk to than she'd ever met before in her life!

We always tell the Young Critics that no one ever has to leave and many come back to visit. As you might guess, they are always overrepresented when awards are handed out senior year. We see them on breaks from college when they want to gather up all the YC books and read them ALL over the break. One visited a summer club meeting and gave a booktalk of Carl Hiaason's 'Flush'. At least two have gone into publishing. One became a journalist. One is a librarian who has been very active in the Young Adult Literature community." More.

Picture shows author Libba Bray, Kate McClelland and Mary Clark (l to r).