So, the beginning is this: a very quiet, shy girl. She was also quite smart, and so during the first years of elementary school she would be finished with her tasks much faster than others, and her teachers would give her books to read to pass the time. They were very short, inconsequential books, but important in their own right, because they were a gateway to something much bigger.

Because that is where the girl caught the reading bug and suddenly living a block away from the library became the most wondrous thing in the world where before she had not really cared about that boring-looking building at all. She got her first library card and visited the library every few days and read voraciously, anything that caught her eye.

I am going to stop talking in the third person now, because that girl is me. And that girl being too fast in class means I now spend all my money and most of my time on books, that girl who spent all her time in the library means I am now a well-read, better-understanding person. Thank you, six years old me.