An early book memory

Let's start a new meme! Here's how it works: blog about a memory from your childhood that has something to do with books or reading. That's it! Here's mine:

When I was in fifth grade, our school readers had a passage from The House of Dies Drear by Virginia Hamilton. I think we read it in class, but I may very well have read it on my own (I tended to read ahead in my English books). I was so fascinated that I checked the book out of the library and read it on my own. Amazon says the book is for kids ages 9-12, and I was a young fifth grader (I started school at age four), so I was probably nine years old or just barely ten, but I remember quite clearly that I didn't understand a damn thing about the book. But I loved it--I loved the language, I loved the description of the strange and haunted house, I loved that the book was about a family completely different from mine.

I distinctly remember that for several days in a row, in the bright fall sunshine, instead of running off to play horses with my friends at recess I sat under a maple tree and read The House of Dies Drear. And I also remember overhearing the fifth grade teachers talk about my sudden change of habit. They were worried that I was sitting out instead of playing with my friends. And I remember thinking, "Hey, I'm reading. Teachers are supposed to encourage reading!"

Anyway, The House of Dies Drear is an awesome book and my fifth grade teacher was an idiot, but at least she wasn't an evil bitch like my sixth grade teacher. But by sixth grade I'd figured out that I could read surreptitiously at my desk during class, thus freeing up my recess time for playing horses. [Playing horses: running around with my friends and whinnying.]

So what's an early book/reading memory of yours? You're all tagged!