Reading first became my magnificent distraction in the third grade when, on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, I finished my first non-picture book (a 99-page volume about Annie Oakley) in one hour while my mom napped in her bedroom. Perhaps you could trace it back to my interest in books like Fox in Socks and Artie the Smartie, or even as far back as a family tradition of sitting down to listen to my dad recite The Night Before Christmas once a year. Whatever the true origin of my bibliophilia, here I am -- a grown woman who just can't get enough of the wonders of books, whether that means reading them, holding them, owning them, feeling the crackle of protective library plastic on their covers, or taking a big whiff of that good ol' booky smell. And what more appropriate fate for one so literarily obsessed as myself than to earn a doctorate degree for reading, writing, and writing about reading. Thus I remain, still, always, blissfully distracted by the joy of books.