Share a Book Memory to Win Books for Alabama's Kids

It just takes a minute. Go to the First Book website and cast your vote for the first book that made reading fun for you. Then vote for the state you want to receive 50,000 books. When I cast my vote, Alabama was #4. So please cast your vote for the kids of Alabama. You may vote daily, so vote as often as you can.

Voting closes at midnight on September 30, 2009. Results of the national vote—as well as a Top 50 list of books that got readers hooked—will be published at the First Book webiste in October.

I chose Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary because it was the first book I can remember showing me the introspective workings of a little girl my age. It wasn't someone simply telling me what Ramona was doing, thinking, or feeling, but Ramona herself who allowed me access to her thoughts to show how she was grappling with the Rules of Life on Klickitat Street, at school, and at Howie's grumpy grandmother's house.