The library where I grew up had a reading fundraiser every summer. All the kids would get people to pledge a certain amount per book read, and then we'd keep track of what we read all summer. There were prizes at the end of the summer for the kid in each age range who read the most books, and the kid who raised the most money, which went into the fund for building an addition onto the library. For really little kids, books that were read to them counted. (My parents usually warned people not to pledge more than about 25 cents per book for me, because I could easily read close to 100 books in a summer.)

I never really thought of it as rewards for reading before. It was always framed as raising money for the library. There would be a theme each year, like it was dinosaurs one year, and each kid would put his or her name on something related, like a picture of a dinosaur pawprint, and they they'd move along the wall toward the "dinosaur cave" set up in one corner of the children's section as you read more books. Then they'd have a special section set up with all the kid-level books about dinosaurs.

The thing that I did see as "rewards for reading" and didn't really like the tone of was the Book-It program, which we had around fifth grade. That was "read a certain number of books in a month, and get a sticker on your Book-It button." Then with those stickers, you could go to Pizza Hut and get a free personal pan pizza. Since nobody in my family liked Pizza Hut, I never got the pizza, but it just seemed silly to have that set number of books to read to get stuff, especially when that stuff was stuff that your parents would have to drive you and buy other stuff for you to get. (And the number was something like 5.)

I very much remember where I got my reading love from. First, my parents were huge with acknowledging the slightest smat thing I did. As soon as I learned to add 2+2 my parents were showing me that it wasn't much harder to add 2222+2222 and so on. As soon as I could read cat, I was taught any word that began or had cat in it. And every time I figured the stuff out on my own my parents would show me off. It was generally the only attention I got, so I learned as much as I could as quickly as I could to have more stuff to show off.

Mom also read to me constantly. My first book I remember was Charlotte's Web, in bed every night with mom. I still read like that. At least a chapter when I read. I'm sure there were books like Goodnight moon and Little Bear, but those were read on my own. I also used to take my mother's books and tell my parents to sit down so I could read to them. I couldn't actually read her books, or at least I couldn't follow them, but my parents sat there while I read a Harlequin romance and pretended it was a story about dinosaurs and kings.

My parents weren't readers. The lady across the street, Buddy Newbury, taught me how to read. We started with dinosaurs. Then she talked my Mom into getting the mail order Dr. Seuss books and I was off.

The thing that I did see as "rewards for reading" and didn't really like the tone of was the Book-It program, which we had around fifth grade. That was "read a certain number of books in a month, and get a sticker on your Book-It button."

That's the sort of thing my kids' schools did. Read-A-Thons sound cool, actually.

It's funny how well I remember the people who abetted my reading. My parents weren't anti-reading (except in my pre-teen years and I wouldn't come out of my bedroom), but I found other people to help.

Miss Smelzel, the librarian at my elementary school 2nd-6th grade, for instance. Classic old spinster librarian (or possibly a dyke in retrospect) - she recognized early that I was hungry for books. She let me check out three books at a time when everybody else only could check out two. I was just going through them so fast. I loved libraries so much. Discovering the world of used bookstores when I was about 12, was unbearably thrilling. Books! That. I. Could. Own! Half cover price of 65 cent books from the early sixties! Woo hoo! Fritz Leiber!

My favourite reading-abetter was Mrs. Mullings, who brought me in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold because I looked bored in school. I had gone through the library (very small) and all the books lying around the building already. The teacher before her, Mrs. Seung, threw things at me because I took the book she'd been reading us and finished it after school. It was on her desk. If you don't want me to read books (or at least me at 8) don't leave them where I can see them.

Mine was mostly my mother, though to my dad's credit he's the one who exposed me to the hefty material. He coached at colleges from my 3rd grade year until I was in high school. He spent summers at the school running the camps and living in the dorms with the players, which is where I stayed when I visited for the summer. There would be boxes full of college text books for me to read.

You really can't dream up a paradise better than reading dusty old classics in darkened corridors of a dorm hall or out on the lawn of Ole Miss.

We always had books around the house, but what I wanted to get my hands on was the huge Encyclopaedia Britannica that lurked in the mahogany case in the living room. My folks bought it for my oldest sister, along with the yearly updates, in the first flush of mid-'50s ideal parenthood. Unfortunately, I was always told not to touch them. I don't think anyone ever used them for anything. The last time I was home, probably twenty years ago now, I looked at them and realized that, as a grown-up, I could probably be trusted with them. I pulled one out, and, swear to God, my mother twitched in automatic protest before she caught herself. I think it was a case of "those are important/valuable/the good set, mustn't use them and mess them up" gone berserk.

I remember the year I wanted headphones for my record player for Christmas. My mother: "You'll just put those on, put on the Star Wars sound track and never come out." I don't think my family quite understood where my brain was. I was honestly told, "Put down that book and watch TV with the rest of us." And this in a family that valued education. Perhaps they didn't like the way I dove into a book and ignored everyone else.

I assume we all got the old "No reading at the dinner table" thing? Yeah, that's what I thought.

But dinner in front of the TV was perfectly fine. Folding trays and everything. I'd be over on the couch behind my tray with a book open on the couch beside me.