This author wrote several of Leslie's childhood favorites such as one about a dog named Ribsy and another about a girl named Ramona.

Leslie's mother forced her to sit still in a chair in the middle of the kitchen until she finished reading this book by Mary Norton about a magical bedknob that whisked children off into exciting adventures.

These short stories about a boy whose nickname was Encyclopedia held Leslie's attention because of their length and the challenge of solving a mystery.

This age old debate is something to consider when siblings such as Leslie and her sister grow up in the same circumstances, but have opposite feelings about reading.

This person, who stands up for a child at a Christian Baptism, told Leslie, "When you have a book, you have a friend."

To Leslie, this emotional story about a swan from E.B. White, read to her in third grade, seemed to be more about the trials and tribulations of trying to be something that you're not, rather than a precious instinctual heritage of wild nature.

This activity, assigned at the end of the school year, would cause Leslie much stress and often remain incomplete.

This number is half a dozen, as well as the number of books Leslie remembers reading by choice as a young adult.

When Leslie reads this book, about a dog who started out white with black spots and ended up black with white spots, to kindergarten students, she shares that she read and loved the same book when she was their age.

This parent was the primary person who read to Leslie as a child.

Virginia Lee Burton's 1939 book about friendship and hard work in a town called Popperville was read to Leslie many times during her early years.

This genre seems unrealistic to Leslie, and therefore not something she ever wanted to read.

This classic novel, written by John Steinbeck, featuring two friends who searched for their American Dream during the Great Depression, was the last novel Leslie remembers actually reading for an English class. Interestingly it was presented as reader's theater in Leslie's 9th grade English class.

Leslie had to drop out of this neighborhood group because it took her too long to read the books they were discussing.

This time of day is after dinner and before one is sleeping; when Leslie's parents read to her as a child.

The excitement of children sneaking gold past Nazi soldiers kept Leslie's interest in her 4th grade class reading of this book by Marie McSwigan.

This progressively leveled reading activity featuring color coded assignments with multiple choice comprehension questions was used in Leslie's elementary school to promote independent reading development, and was the bane of Leslie existence.

This store, which was a subsidiary of Borders Books, is where Leslie spent many hours shopping with her grandmother.

This book, by Robert James Waller, about an Italian woman living on a farm in Iowa who meets an exciting stranger when her family is away, is the only book Leslie ever read in one sitting.

Leslie's childhood had an absence of books from this beloved author who wrote many a silly tales featuring rhymes, word families, and a large cat wearing a hat.

Thornton W. Burgess created this location for the setting of his series featuring such characters as Buster Bear, Little Joe Otter, and Blacky the Crow. Selecting these books from the public library and listening to them being read to her, was Leslie's earliest recollection of reading.

This classic novel, by John Steinbeck, about an Oklahoma farm family forced to travel west during the Great Depression, was a reading assignment in Leslie's sophomore English class, and prompted Leslie's first use of Cliff Notes since she could not get through it.

Although Leslie had adequate vocabulary and fluency, this component of reading, as identified by the National Reading Panel, seemed to be less developed for Leslie.

A second grade student from India at Leslie's school was impressed that she was reading this famous Indian myth.

In this 44-character orthography used in Leslie's beginning reading instruction, each character represents one English phoneme.