Ever since I can remember, I was a reader.

As a kid, I remember having a huge bookcase in our very small house that was twice my height, filled with Louis Lamour, John Steinbeck, Agatha Christie, hobby books, photography books, history books, and lots of random novels picked up at garage sales here and there. Of course, my younger sister and I had our own smaller bookcase in our bedroom with all our favorites - but that never stopped me from wondering what was in all those wonderful books that my parents prized enough to take up a whole wall of our house.

I remember sitting at the bottom shelf and looking through old photography manuals that my mom got in college and the beautiful pictures inside. I tried to get ideas for our clubhouses by looking through a set of home improvement manuals my dad had. I even prepared myself for disaster by learning how to treat knife wounds and apply a tourniquet with an old First Aid Safety book (not that I ever had to use this information). And my parents never took any of the books away from me - as long as I treated them with respect, I was allowed to look through anything I could reach.

My mom read mystery and fiction, my dad read westerns and history - I read pretty much anything I could get my hands on. I believe that my love for reading was set in stone by my parents who let me know that I could read about anyone or anything, from any time or place, and all I had to do was find a book about it. And my parents made sure I was able to get my hands on them too - with trips to the library, book fairs, and making sure that the kids books we did have were interesting stories with creative illustrations to keep us reading them.

Now that I'm a parent, it's like going back in time and introducing my daughter to all those great books I discovered as a kid. Trying to track down old favorites for her brings back memories of my mom sitting on the couch reading 'The Pearl' or 'Little House on the Prairie' out loud to the whole family before we went to bed most nights. I find myself enjoying reading 'The Mouse and the Motorcycle' out loud, as much as I did the first time it was read to me.

But I know that a lot of my friends didn't do this growing up, and don't even know where to start looking to help their kids become readers. That's why I decided to create this website. So that all the parents and teachers out there could give each other a hand finding those great stories to keep our kids interest in reading as something fun, and not a chore that only goes with homework. Please give us a hand and add some of your favorites to the pile!