Students, my wish for you is that you will love reading as much as I do. Reading is more than a subject in school. Reading is a gift that keeps on giving throughout your life. Reading is not only entertaining, it keeps you learning and thinking. When I learned to read I began with the Dick and Jane series. The more I read, the more I wanted to read. Soon I was reading chapter books. There is nothing so exquisite as the feeling of wanting to continue reading a good book in order to find out what happens next; only to find that you've read the last page and then you're sad that it's over! The characters become real. Some of my old friends from books when I was a girl were Pippi Longstocking, Trixie Belden, Old Yeller, Henry and Ribsy, Birdie Boyer in Strawberry Girl, Laura Ingalls, Caddie Woodlawn, Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, Betsy in Snowbound with Betsy, and who could forget the Boxcar Children?