What Inspired You to Read?

I can't say I remember the first book I ever read. It was well before I was five years old, probably some simple picture book with a sentence or two on each page. I do remember a counting book with a puppy, a yellow book about a lion that had one page of small words in large font for me to read and one of large words in small font for the parents. I remember picking up Nancy Drew and the odd, thick paperbacks whose bright covers my sister hid behind a cloth cover and finding them both boring beyond words. There were Sesame Street books (remember the ones with the yellow covers and the alphabet on both inner covers?) But all of that was only how I mastered the skills. I read them because I knew that reading was a good thing, so as boring as I found the books at that time I kept plugging away at them through my sixth and into my seventh year. See, it was not *a* book that inspired to to master the art....it was books.
It was the scattered piles of histories and biographies that Daddy left around with pictures of stern warriors and battleships on the covers. It was how no matter how bone tired he was he would always find time for them after work and after us. 
It was the shiney science fiction novels that made Mommy's eyes light with excitement. Mommy, who "Wasn't really a reader," but who would dig into a book as thick as a brick and come out with tales of blue skinned princes and ships that spoke.
It was the hidden piles of lurid romance novels and dark Stephen King stories that were the only force on earth that could make my ADD ADHD poster child sister sit still for any length of time. 
Some power gripped them all and I couldn't understand it, but dangnabbit I was going to figure it out! Finally I found my niche; talking animal stories, and I understood. But their fascination was the bait that kept me trying.