Books define the periods in our lives as much as the songs we listen to or the clothes we wear. Whether we danced along to Madonna in our leggings and lace gloves or bopped to Bill Haley and the Comets in a circle skirt, whether we stuck our noses in an Archie comic book or tackled “Huckleberry Finn,” we’re a product of our times.

That’s certainly true for our favorite childhood books. If you grew up in the fifties or sixties, you probably read Roald Dahl, “The Hardy Boys,” or Nancy Drew mysteries. In the seventies, Judith Viorst (“Anthony and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”), Maurice Sendak (“Where the Wild Things Are”), and Shel Silverstein (“The Giving Tree”) ruled the shelves. In the eighties, favorite writers included Judy Blume (“Are You There God?  It’s Me, Margaret”) and R.L. Stein (the wildly popular “Goosebumps” series).

Once a week, our elementary school librarian gathered us all together on a rug in front of her chair for story time, and read a chapter aloud – in a thrillingly dramatic voice – from whatever book she’d chosen to share. She was such an enthralling reader, and her theatrics were so convincing, that by the time she reached the end of the chapter, we all clamored for more.

“But what happens next, Miss Shaw?” we’d demand anxiously as she closed the book.

But she’d only smile and say, “You’ll have to wait until next week.  Or-” and she’d hold the book aloft “-you can check the book out today, and find out for yourself.”

Miss Shaw was clever, I’ll give her that, and sneaky.  She reeled us into reading on a book-baited hook.

The first story she read to us was A.A. Milne’s “Winnie-the-Pooh.” Pooh’s real name (if you don’t remember, or if, alas, you only know the Disney version of Pooh) was Edward Bear.

One day, Pooh goes for a walk with his friend Christopher Robin and discovers a tree, and bees, and the prospect of honey.  Pooh decides to climb the tree but promptly falls into a thorn bush. Next, he rolls in mud to disguise himself as a dark cloud, and borrows a blue balloon from Christopher Robin.  Clutching the balloon, he rises up alongside the tree.  The bees swarm suspiciously around Pooh, and Christopher Robin must use his popgun to burst the balloon and rescue his friend.

It was a simple story, told with a quiet charm that I never grew tired of.  Ernest H. Shepard’s drawings ignited a lifelong love of illustration, so perfectly did he portray Pooh and Christopher Robin and all of their friends in the Hundred Acre Wood.

I discovered the Chronicles of Narnia when Miss Shaw read us the first book in the series, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.” From the start, I was captivated. Like Lucy, I wanted to open my closet door and see, not rows of school dresses and patent-leather shoes, but talking fauns and snow-topped trees and a wise, kindly lion named Aslan.

(Of course, this never happened. The dresses on hangers and rows of patent-leather shoes in my closet stubbornly remained.  But one could always hope.)

As a villain, the White Witch was deliciously terrifying. I wasn’t sure what a ‘Turkish delight’ was, but I knew that if the White Witch offered me one, I’d never, ever accept it as readily as Edmund did. (After all, his greed caused no end of trouble for a lot of people.)

When I discovered the books of Edward Eager, they became my new obsession. He was an American lyricist and playwright who admitted that he was greatly influenced by his own favorite children’s writer, E. Nesbit. In each of his books, four siblings – Jane, Mark, Katharine, and Martha – have magical adventures involving, variously, a half-magic coin; a sundial; a magic lake; a wishing well; a knight’s castle; and an Elizabethan knot garden. The illustrations by N.M. Bodecker brought the stories to captivating life and left me longing to join in their adventures.

Eventually, I abandoned magic and fantasy for mystery. I devoured pretty much every Nancy Drew book ever written, from “The Secret of the Old Clock” to “The Clue in the Crumbling Wall.”  Nancy, with her convertible, and her best friends Bess and George, was always hot on the trail of a puzzling mystery that only she could solve.

In every book, Nancy had freedom, a car, and a new mystery to solve.  What more could any girl want in a fictional heroine?

When I eventually tired of Nancy (I mean, how many times can one person get conked on the head and not sustain permanent brain damage?), I wanted a mystery with a little something… more.

I wanted a mystery with a dead body.

I found what I was looking for in the pages of my first Agatha Christie novel, “By the Pricking of My Thumbs.” I was hooked. Christie’s books had everything – murder, atmosphere, an assortment of suspects, a culprit, and plenty of red herrings along the way. Her books were distinctly British and featured either the urbane French detective, Hercule Poirot, the sweet but clever Miss Marple, or the stylish husband-and-wife team of Tommy and Tuppence Beresford.

Every book featured a dead body and plenty of likely suspects, and usually took place in an English village or a far-flung English country house. It was fun to try and guess “who done it” each time. (Of course, I nearly always guessed wrong.) Christie’s books later led me on to other excellent British mystery writers like P.D. James and John Mortimer.

I still love a good mystery. (And I admit it, I still don’t always figure out who done it.) And as for those books of fantasy and magic I loved so much… well, now a whole new generation of kids are captivated by the adventures of Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl, just as I was by “The Hobbit” and “A Wrinkle in Time.”

I’ve read a lot of books since then.  Some I remember vividly; some I don’t.  Some were good, some weren’t.  If not for Miss Shaw, firing up my childish imagination during those long-ago story times and igniting a life-long love of reading, I would have missed out on all kinds of amazing fictional adventures.

I owe her a huge debt of gratitude that I can never possibly repay.

But no matter how many years (or books) go by, there’s still nothing better on a rainy day than to pull out a well-worn copy of “A Little Princess” or “Mary Poppins,” curl up on the sofa, and revisit some of the happiest times I ever had…

– lost between the pages of a book.