Parasaurolophus. My favorite dinosaur. I don’t think I’ll ever forget that word. When I was a child, I made my poor parents read me a dinosaur book every night before I went to bed. They weren’t even stories; they were simply labeled pictures of dinosaurs with short descriptions. For some reason, I was absolutely obsessed and could not get enough. I needed to hear the same obnoxiously long names every night until they were permanently ingrained in my brain. Apatosaurus. I will never forget some of them. I could tell you the name of almost any dinosaur – on land or in the sea, flying or swimming, humongous or tiny. The stories became a way for me to escape to a wonderful place full of fantastical creatures. I needed to know them all. But while I loved learning about these weird-looking animals and a world that I would never get to experience, I also loved hanging out with my parents. Reading became a way of spending time together, one on one, the perfect way to end the night. Curled up in bed, clad in atrocious dinosaur pajamas, under the hanging, warm white reading lamp. They would pretend to complain when I asked for another story, another grocery list of dinosaurs, but I knew they secretly loved it. It was as important for them as it was for me. Reading was a way to bond and have fun, which led me to associate it with positive feelings. My parents always kept the shelves in our house full of classic novels and encouraged us to spend time reading. However, they never forced me to. I never had a “thirty minutes of reading” rule to follow every day. They made sure that reading had a positive connotation and talked about great books but let me decide how I wanted to spend my time. I think that’s what caused me to reach for a book whenever I was bored, which is something I still do today; it’s just hard to find time. It might not be realistic to aim to read over one hundred books a year anymore, but I still spend a good amount of time either reading articles or novels. Reading became a way to escape, to focus on something completely irrelevant when my life was full of stress. After the dinosaur books, I moved on to Magic Treehouse and Harry Potter and fell in love with reading fiction. I loved being able to visit a different world and to live through the story. Even now, if I am reading for enjoyment, I usually gravitate towards a fantasy or mystery. When we began writing in school, it was no surprise that all of my short stories were either mysteries or set in the middle ages. They were filled with Nancy-Drew type protagonists or metallic dragons that could breathe fire. The positive reinforcement from my parents never wavered and was then joined by a stream of good grades and lavish remarks from my teachers. I was never discouraged from reading or writing, which is why it became an enduring outlet for me. There were no consequences; it was merely a way to escape and immerse myself in a different world. Since then, I have used books as portals and windows to experience and learn about different places, cultures, and people. And it all started with dinosaurs. Those abominable names taught me how to sound out words and left me laughing with my parents when we messed them up, fostering a positive association with reading that has continued since then. I never want to forget them.