When I’m under the influence of a well-written book, nothing else exists. I’d gladly give up eating, sleeping, and taking care of my family if I could just stay under the spell of the magical words.

When I was about seven years old, I borrowed a book from the library ( I wish I could remember the name of that book) that captured my interest like nothing before it. It was about a girl who lived in a small town near a river (I lived in a small town near a river!), and the descriptions of the setting and the characterization of the girl were so vivid that I believed I had met her during my wanderings around my town. When I finished the book, I told my mother I was going to go look for the girl, because I wanted to be friends with her. My mother nodded and said, “Okay,” probably happy that I was going outside. (It was a different time; the kids in my neighborhood often left the house in the morning and went exploring all day with our mothers’ blessings.)

After a couple of hours of searching, I realized that, as real as the girl seemed, she was a character in a story. The book had undoubtedly been written years earlier, so even if she had been an actual person, she would be a teen or even a grownup by now. And she could have lived by a different river in a different state. I trudged home, disappointed that I couldn’t enter into the story; it was over.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio; My Name is Barbra, by Barbra Streisand; Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel. These are all books that made me lose track of time. When I was forced to do some other urgent thing, all I could think about was how soon could I get back to my book. I was addicted. I wanted to abide in the worlds of the stories, to know the characters more deeply, to ponder what I might have done in their shoes. Turning the last page was almost painful, a loss. I wanted more.