It all started with a simple question. A friend wanted to know what book made me fall in love with reading. A bibliophile such as I should know that right off the top of her head, right? I mean, I’ve been reading everything I could get my hands on since I can remember. If I can’t find anything else to read, I’ll pick up a cereal box or shampoo bottle and read the list of ingredients.

Brother and Mama were the same way. When I was growing up, Daddy finally passed the infamous “No Reading At The Table” law, which nearly cost him the next election. He said he was tired of spending all his meals staring at the covers of three open books with forks blindly poking around beneath them.

I can tell you without hesitation what my favorite book of all time is. I love Miss Nelle Harper Lee’s window into the Deep South of times gone by so much that I have several copies of “To Kill A Mockingbird” lying around. If I get lonesome for Scout or Jem, they’re never far away, and no matter which page I open the book to, I immediately fall into their world. I confess that I was in love with Boo Radley even before it was revealed that he was a good guy. And Dill gets on my nerves; I’m not a bit surprised that he grew up to be Truman Capote.

I can list other all-time favorites, too. “Rebecca,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Boy’s Life,” “Treasure Island” and “Prince of Tides” all come immediately to mind.

And, of course, I inhaled the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries as a girl. For the entirety of my fifth-grade year, I toted around a copy of “Good Old Archibald,” a book about a raucous household full of red-headed children and culture shock that ensued on both sides when a much pampered boy moved in down the block. I loved that book.

But the one that changed my life, that caused me to love reading beyond all other pastimes? That turned out to be a hard question to answer.

“The Exorcist”? No. That one, read when I was around 9 years old, scarred me for life. It’s a wonder I ever read another word.

“Robinson Caruso”? Nah, that was Brother’s big deal book.

“Black Beauty”? Close, but even though I still have dreams of galloping across hills and dales atop a mighty steed, I was already in love with reading when that book caught my attention.

As I searched for the answer to my friend’s question, a memory surfaced, and I began to smile. Of course. The book that caused me to fall in love with reading was the first real book I ever read. There were two of them, actually.

Mama used to read to us every night. She’d tuck us into our little twin beds and climb in beside whichever one of us had yelled the loudest about being the “page turner.” Then she’d read a chapter or two before we went to sleep. It was magic, and no matter how wild we’d been at bedtime, we were always just about to drift off by the time she finished.

When I was 7, she chose two books, one for me and one for Brother, and she read a chapter out of each every evening for several days. Then, one night after we were good and caught up in the stories, she handed me the books and said, “You read to your brother. You can do it.”

I was incensed, let me tell you! Reading was Mama’s job, and those books were big. But when I looked across the masking tape line that separated our sides of the room and saw Brother’s big, hopeful eyes, I sighed and picked up one of the books.

It took about 10 minutes for the worlds of “Heidi” and “Tom Sawyer” to open up for me, but once they had, I was hooked for life. I had loved hearing Mama read the stories, but when I was in charge, the characters became real, with their own voices and expressions. I felt their emotions and saw their surroundings. The very words were alive on the page!

Reading those books to brother, I fell in love with Heidi and Tom and that irascible Huck. I don’t know if Mama planned it, or if she was just tired that fateful evening, but she handed me the world, and my first, most lasting love, beneath the light of my bedside lamp.