The Event Has Commenced!!

Hello, citizens! The Children's Book Event--hosted by the wonderful Megan McDade--has now officially begun! All through the month of September, there will be posts, interviews, giveaways and more from authors, bloggers and illustrators--all related and circulating around children's books and the memories they invoke! Now the magnificent Ms. McDade has posted her first questions (ahem): what are your first memories of reading?
Now, me personally? I remember constantly reading "Where the Sidewalk Ends." It was a book of poems that were so strange yet simple and man, was I hooked. I think in my young mind, I connected with the weirdness of it. I mean, there was stuff in there from flying shoes, to a girl waiting for the rain to come because she wants a drink of water and oh, let's not forget about another girl who ate an entire whale and by the time she was finished, she was an old lady! Talk about determination! As weird as the poems were, they made sense. They weren't cute or filled with hidden meaning and they didn't preach at you, either. They were blunt, telling you in the simplest of terms what would happen if you were determined to eat a whale.
The illustrations in that book always struck with me as just this side of creepy too....which when I think about it, is probably what led me to the world of Dean Koontz but that's another story...