Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved stories. “Tell me about the olden days,” I used to say to my mom, meaning, “What was it like when you were a kid?” “Tell me again how I’d climb onto your lap when I was a baby to eat your ice cream,” I’d insist to my dad. I even liked the stories about the boogieman my big sister made to scare me. My favorite toys were dolls and my favorite games involved playing pretend, which is really just another form of storytelling. And of course I loved being read to. Where the Wild Things Are. Harry the Dirty Dog. Harold and the Purple Crayon. Once, in kindergarten, I read a book aloud to my class. “She’s just making it up,” I heard one boy say to another. He was right that I couldn’t read yet, but I hadn’t made up a single word. I simply knew the book by heart because I’d had my mother read it to me so many times. I don’t remember what book it was, but I do remember it rhymed horse with of course. That was something else I was beginning to love: how words sounded when you put them next to each other in different combinations.
