“Childhood reading is magic.” “Huck and Jim on the raft. Scout in the courtroom. The images in my mind’s eye I created as a child reading those books are still inside me. I can call them up even now, as I sit using the free Wi-Fi at this coffee shop in Austin, Texas. That’s a miracle! I believe reading is one of the most special — and most crucial — pleasures of childhood. If I hadn’t read Judy Blume as a kid, I’d never have been able to love Tolstoy as an adult.”
