1. What were your favorite childhood stories?  Oh gosh.  I think I lived to read as a child and teen.  Just off of the top of my head some of my favorite things to read were The Wrinkle in Time books, the Little House on the Prairie books, and Trixie Belden books.  I also worked my way through my dad's extensive Sci-fi collection.  As a teen, some of my favorite authors were Heinlein, Frank Herbert, McAffrey's Pern series, and horror novelists like Stephen King and John Saul. 

2. What books from your childhood would you like to share with [your] children?  All of the above and Charlotte's Web, The Phanton Tollbooth, The Westing Game, The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankenweilre [sp?], and The Rats of NIMH.

3. Have you re-read any of those childhood stories and been surprised by anything?  Re-reading Heinlein I was struck by how chauvanistic and adolescent the books were.

4. How old were you when you first learned to read?  According to my parents, it was well before Kindergarden.  My father says he taught me to read because he was tired of reading the Sunday comics to me.

5. Do you remember the first 'grown-up' book you read? How old were you?   No.  I was raiding my Dad's paperback collection as soon as I could reach them.  I was probably 9 or 10 and it was probably sci-fi.

Answering these questions now that I am a parent makes me realize how great it was that my parents never censored or limited the books I read.  If I wanted to read it I could.  Period.  The only thing my Dad ever advised me not to read [and he did not forbid me, just cautioned me] was HP Lovecraft.   He warned me that Lovecraft was the only author he ever read that scared him -- even as an adult.    So I stayed away.  And still have for the most part, though I have read a short story here and there and find them altogether too intensely creepy.  

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